As we discussed in the previous post, Generation Z is one of the most innovated generations because we have so many resources available for us. But we do have some bad traits or rather drawbacks. In reality we all have too much to do, we are always stressed about something and doing something. Society tells us over and over that as teens we need to prepare for the future, prepare for college, prepare for a job, and prepare for any possible emergency in life. I am part of Generation Z and like everyone else I have this mentality where I want to be special and unique but just ike everyone else...
l was told that l can be anything l want to be if l work hard. The difficult part is that you can be anything has come to mean you should do everything. We are expected to understand how to navigate technology, there is an overwhelming assumption of having to be available for everyone all the time. We have a learning curve that is incredibly unforgiving, there is a dark side of technology when mistakes are made, public shaming takes to mob mentality on social media. I have learnt that cancel culture, is the idea of people dropping celebrities by unfollowing someone enmasse for doing something controversial or bad and this mainly happens on Tik Tok. This means that the person’s celebrity status can change drastically overnight.
Tik tok, is a viral Chinese video-sharing social networking service. It is used to create short music, lip-sync, dance, comedy, and talent videos of 3 to 15 seconds, it is the biggest Gen Z platform. You have got Charlie D’amélio, Addison Rae, the Sway house, and the Hype house. These are the most talked about people and groups when it comes to Tik tok. Everything spreads on this app, from news, trending tweets, celebrity gossip, fashion trends, music etc. It can be fun, creative and it could appear as if one gains a supportive community from the outside eye but, there is so much more to it. Body shaming. Cancel culture. Racism. False or unrealistic beauty standards. Bashing of people’s religions and beliefs as well. There is always a problem with someone somewhere. During this quarantine there are certain people who started to get famous and got a lot of hype from people, these are most likely the good-looking people or the really funny people. It gets to a point where they go from underrated to famous and then to overrated and hated by everyone because they are still popular.
There is a pressure to master the art of avoiding the online dangers because there can be serious consequences. We are warned about the dangers that lurk around every corner of the internet; cyber bullying, catfishing, stalking but we often we do not know what to do practically to heed those warnings. We do not have enough life experience or wisdom about our choices and that they can have long term consequences. We have no way of disconnecting from constant media despite the backlash of technology we have an intense attachment to it. We are so enveloped in social media that there is a crushing pressure to be the perfect teen. Generation Z is groomed to be well rounded teens, we must make decisions from constant choices, working for the future. There are so many options for colleges, majors and schoolwork, everything is labelled as a once in a lifetime opportunity that we simply cannot miss out on.
Just like how people learn in different ways we are all good at different things. There is this pressure to fill our schedules to meet other people expectations, and it seems we need to be more competitive. We want to load up our job applications with impressive achievements, we can’t just be smart , we have to be athletic and a leader and volunteer in the community , we have to make constant decisions from having so many possibilities. My schedule is so cramped from everything I choose to do but I still look at other opportunities and try and see if there’s a way that l can fit them in with everything else. That crushing pressure of trying to be the perfect teenager is crushing our mental wellness is being challenged. The stress levels that teenagers face are out of control , l feel like I could implode , studying for 3 tests at a time , going for rowing practise and gym practise , going for clubs and trying to keep up a social life and talk to my family and have time to myself . We are pushing ourselves to the limit. Anxiety can take hold in many different forms from test anxiety to hyperventilating to panic attacks and once they start, they do not stop. Depression is on the rise in teens it can start from an overload of wanting to do everything but nothing feels worth it anymore , our mind tells us there’s no point in doing anything but another part is telling us we have to do something. Our adolescent years force us to take rest days , we call in sick so we can simply get a rest day so we can recover from life , yes it may cause problems to keep up with classes but it helps us decompress by calming down from the pressure.
The most common phrases in high school now:
“I’m tired”, “l want to die”, “I’m going to fail”, “l don’t even care at this point”. This sums up our mental health in 2020. I’m 15 and all I want to know is if I’m going to be okay , I’m stressed and I’m worrying and it needs to change , if we keep going at this rate we are going to exhaust ourselves before we are even adults , we are always doing, going, getting and having. This means we must put time in our schedules to just do nothing. What our parents want from us is to be happy but before we can be happy, we need to focus on just being.
But there are some parents who are the cause of most of the stress and anxiety we have, personally I think this is more common in African parents. Most have this mentality of always wanting their kids to study all the time and get good grades and if they don’t , they cannot do things they enjoy like sports or clubs because of the grades they get and this causes a lot of young teenagers to stress a lot about their grades and have to cut out time from their social life to please their parents and end up not being happy people. It will then come to a point where your kids can not come to you for help because you do not support their well-being and they start being raised by the internet. As a parent you need to ask yourself am l being the best l can be to support my child or is he/she being raised by the internet because I am not easy to reach?
We are so focused on the outside world of trauma and drama , perhaps we need to focus on the inside for our well-being , and take mental health days and naps , add more filters to our lives so we can make conscious choices from the constant opportunities that flood our mental inbox. We need some confirmation that despite how crazy this world gets that we are surviving and thriving, Gen Z needs someone to tell us that we are doing just fine. So hey, if you are reading this, we are doing just fine.
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