Just Sociology Tings; Why Gen Z does not care anymore

In the midst of hellish wildfires, mass media censorship and numerous genocides occurring simultaneously, it quite literally feels impossible to give a shit, and I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way. 

A study conducted by the Oliver Wayman Forum found that about 65% of Gen Z'ers in America reported struggling with at least one mental health issue. While this influx of deteriorating mental health can be observed across multiple different generations, anyone who has been paying attention to Gen Z for the past few years will be able to see a unique amount of apathy and indifference this generation has towards the socioeconomic and geopolitical state of the world. 

As a 2004 baby myself — maybe this is just affinity bias — I can’t really blame us. The signs of rapid global warming had been on the wall for a while now, but it wasn’t until I began seeing footage of the wildfires that are — as of writing — currently consuming Los Angeles that I had a rather disturbing epiphany: there might not be a future for me to enjoy. 

What is the point in working toward goals when there’s a slim chance of seeing the fruits of your labor? What’s the point in worrying about everyone else when I can barely function properly on my own? I’ve been going back and forth with the same line of questioning for quite some time now, and I know for a fact that I’m not alone in this. 

A Healthline article written by CRNA Racheal Nall  describes apathy as “an absence of feeling or emotion” that can “affect your motivation and leave you feeling detached from the world.” While Nall lists a multitude of causes that can lead to having these feelings, one of the subsections of the article specifically discusses how traumatic events can sometimes lead to feelings of apathy and extreme indifference as a coping mechanism. 

Now, in the context that Nall is referring to, the traumatic situations in question are much more dire — things such as surviving a natural disaster or being a prisoner of war — however I think the overall concept is still applicable to Gen Z. 

Even if the word “trauma” is very loosely defined and often gets tossed around more than a pair of shoes in a washing machine, I don’t think it’s outlandish to say that my generation has borne witness to more than its fair share of world changing events and catastrophes at this point. 

It seems like every year a new Hurricane seems to break the record for being one of the most powerful ever recorded. Just last year we witnessed Hurricane Helene nearly decimate the southeast portion of the United States, crowning it as the second deadliest U.S. hurricane of the past 50 years behind Hurricane Katrina —I am not counting the death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. 

Even though we, as a nation, have grown used to seeing news reports about wildfires rampaging across California, seeing a huge metropolitan area such as LA go up in flames feels almost apocalyptic, especially since catastrophes such as this don’t typically occur in the U.S. where we don’t have much of a choice but to watch. 

But I think the true, final nail in the coffin was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. The oldest of Gen Z were still in their early 20s at the time, and during the prime age at which they are supposed to be exploring our independence and stepping out into the real world, they were forced into solitude and isolation. 

For middle and high school students at the time, our social lives were placed on the back burner during the time in adolescence where building and maintaining relationships is the most crucial. Social distancing and the lack of in person interaction led to the formation of unhealthy parasocial relationships, a lack of social skills, and an inability to form communities off of the internet. 

Long standing evidence has shown that a lack of community involvement and kinship leads to heightened feelings of anxiety, depression and stress, as highlighted by an article titled "The effects of social isolation, stress and discrimination on mental health” provided by the National Library of Medicine — NLM. 

While these effects are bound to deeply affect anyone regardless of age demographic, because Gen Z is still undergoing crucial brain development, these feelings have been proven to carry on into adulthood when taken on at such an early age, as mentioned in another article from the NLM titled “Developmental Risk I: Depression and the Developing Brain.” 

All of the back-to-back huge, traumatic events that Gen Z has witnessed have led to an increase in deteriorating mental health, an aversion to socializing, and a tendency to disassociate from both the real world and the internet. 

This form of dissociation has had severe real world implications, such as our inability to empathize with others and our refusal to commit to anything for substantial periods of time.  

Along with the severe effects of climate change and the ongoing COVID-19 epidemic, the high rates of inflation and stagnant federal minimum wage has backed us into a rather uncomfortable position where many of our dreams of going to university or obtaining higher earning jobs seem practically unobtainable. 

As a full-time college student who also works anywhere between 40 to 55 hour weeks between two jobs, it feels like no matter how hard I work, I never make any progress toward my goals. 

The world seems to be dying at an impossibly fast rate, and by the time I graduate and actually get to start living my life, the government will either have become a fully-fledged fascist state, the effects of climate change will have become completely irreversible, or nuclear armageddon will have begun. 

Because of this, I’ve begun to disassociate. All of the time I’ve spent invested in different geopolitical issues has begun to dwindle down to nothing more than procrastinating with my school work via mindless scrolling on TikTok and Youtube Shorts —don’t judge me. 

I know for a fact that I am far from an isolated instance. So many of my generational peers, both online and in real-life spaces have communicated the same feelings of hopelessness, loneliness and passivity toward the world around them as well as in their own personal lives. 

While many people like to make the argument that Gen Z is just sensitive and that we can’t handle the real world, older generations don’t seem to grasp the fact that the world was handed to us in the shittiest state that it possibly could be — given how technologically advanced we are. It’s like being born on a sinking ship with no lifeboats — all we have ever known is death, chaos and carnage. 

Now we are too tired to care.