Abstract
Studying Gen Z and its culture requires gathering information and conducting observations about this particular generation and its members, making sense of the influence of digital and media technologies on this generation, and, finally, understanding how the social, political, and economic pressures we all experience affect our students and their generation. In essence, studying Gen Z is about studying U.S. culture and political issues, cultural anxieties, and social problems that this generation has inherited. The book Gen Z, Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age is about how decades-old social and political issues intersect with digital culture and materialize in the lives of Gen Z members. Since authors Roberta Katz, Sarah Ogilvie, Jane Shaw, and Linda Woodhead come from different disciplines, their cross-disciplinary approach to exploring this digital-age generation with all its complexities is noteworthy. Because of the authors’ multi-disciplinary expertise, the book manages to offer well-rounded discussions about Gen Z and its culture.
As the authors of the book note, Gen Z is the first generation born into a digital culture, where every aspect of daily life is highly digitalized and mediated. Unlike the generations before them, the members of Gen Z are not migrants to digital technologies. The Internet, cyberspace, social network sites, quick media application, AI, and other technologies have affected this generation's cultural identity formation and experiences in a multitude of ways. These technologies and the surrounding culture have also shaped Gen Z's anxieties, successes, and failures. In each chapter, the book's authors illustrate how these issues are manifested in the lives of Gen Z. Besides having been born into a highly digitalized culture, this generation is also the most diverse generation, at least in the United States and the United Kingdom. In addition to their racial and ethnic diversity, most Gen Zers acknowledge their physical and learning disabilities, and they feel relatively at ease identifying as queer and/or trans compared to the members of previous generations (Atay and Ashlock 2022). Therefore, Gen Z has cultural, digital, and technological competencies and literacies that members of previous generations did not have the ability or space to articulate.
The authors effectively do not isolate Gen Z's experiences. Instead, they compare the generation's experiences with those of other generations to determine if the social, political, and economic issues they face are experienced similarly by members of other generations. In their introduction, the authors make this clear by saying, “A crisis looms for all unless we can find ways to change” (p. 5). They directly state that post-millennials have a lot to teach the members of previous generations, but they also have plenty to learn. This call for intergenerational dialogue deserves kudos.
A project like this one that aims to study such a complicated subject—a diverse, complex, and rapidly changing generation—requires multimodal and transdisciplinary methods. In this case, the authors blend ethnography, interviews, focus groups, and short reflexive writings from the participants. Collectively, these methods help them to examine the different aspects of Gen Z as well as include Gen Z voices as part of the project. As readers, we hear the voices of the participants throughout, which is one of the strengths of the book.
The notion of belonging is an important concept for cultural studies, identity studies, and education for a variety of reasons. Before new media technologies emerged, we created and recreated a sense of identity through our belonging to different groups or organizations such as families, friendships, workplaces, or classrooms. The emergence of online domains offered new spaces for people to belong to as well as opportunities to belong to new groups regardless of temporal and geographical differences. The authors of this book indeed recognize the power of social media and new media technologies, and they devote a significant discussion in Chapter Four to presenting their participants’ stories on this subject. As they argue, the Internet expands the possibilities for people to make connections in groups where they feel they belong.
It is true that the members of Gen Z were born into a chaotic, fast-paced, and rapidly changing world, and it is no secret that their resultant social and cultural anxieties have created a disconnect between them and Baby Boomers. As a result, Gen Z is interested in alternative ways of organizing its world and in newer and more collaborative ways of leadership. In Chapter Five, the authors clearly articulate these forces and dive into a deeper discussion about the different models of leadership and organizational cultures that Gen Z envisions. This is a particularly intriguing chapter because it calls for bridging the generational gap and it addresses some of the cultural anxieties surrounding leadership and organizational change. The second important concept in this chapter is the idea of family. Changing social and cultural pressures have created different types of families and alternative ways of imaging these families. For example, members of the LGBTQIA+ community often see their friends’ circles as their families since they might be excluded from their biological families. Similarly, immigrants who move to far away locations without any immediate family may construct close-knit relationships with others whom they consider family. In Chapter Five, the authors of the book also talk about how members of Gen Z perceive family structures and connections differently than previous generations because of the social and cultural forces that have shaped their realities.
Members of each generation face different challenges. For example, millions of young men from the Lost Generation lost their lives a century ago during the First World War. The loss of lives in that war consequently shaped the lives and fears of that generation. Today, the members of Gen Z are facing challenges that affect how they experience the world around them. These challenges produce different anxieties. Fortunately, we take the impact of these anxieties on mental health more seriously now than in the past, and as a western society, we provide the tools and spaces to address this impact. The authors rightly devote an entire chapter to addressing these issues and provide an excellent discussion about the specific challenges that Gen Z faces.
Overall, Gen Z Explained: The Art of Living in a Digital Age is a much needed and timely interdisciplinary book that tackles multiple aspects of Gen Z and their online lives as well as the impact of digital culture on their experiences and identities. Although it is a very well written and engaging book, I think its major strength is its inter- and transdisciplinary approach to Gen Z, digital culture, and the issues involved in generational divides.