I can’t see the future- the Gen-Z perspective on adulthood

Opinion

By Petra Gammon 

If you were to ask someone born in 1957 what their adulthood would look like at 16, they’d likely describe the American Dream- a nuclear family, hatchback model car, three bedroom home, family oriented vacations once a year. For individuals born between 1997-2010 the answer is strikingly different, and less hopeful. 

The first digitally native generation, we do not know a life without Google. Growing up many of us had our lives documented on YouTube or Facebook, making many of our mistakes easily traceable. Algorithms guide our interests, music tastes, and possibly career choices. And during some of our most formative stages, a deadly virus isolated the world. Graduations happened over Zoom calls with muffled microphones and turned off cameras. Kindergarten was learning to navigate technology before being able to write full sentences. Hanging out with friends meant relearning to socialise.

Gen-Z is growing up in a world that has made it difficult to survive. As tuition for higher education skyrockets for careers that pay minimum wage and are hard to find opportunities for, artificial intelligence threatens to dissolve the need for human input at all. These factors make it hypocritical to say “getting a degree means one day everything will work out”.

As a communications major, the words “adapt” and “pivot” are spoken to me frequently by those in Gen-X. But what exactly do I adapt or pivot to? How does one build a stable foundation when the ground is shaking? Is a robot more valuable to others than me?

My generation popularised the term “dark humour” to help cope with the troubles thrown our way. The threat of sea levels rising before we can afford to imagine walking around Venice, Italy, is raw and real. We speculate how strict our self-imposed surveillance state will be. We worry that an inappropriate video posted at age fourteen will follow us until we turn ninety.

These worries are real, and likely won’t go away. 

Creeping into every corner of our minds is the quietest fear of all- will raising children be worth it someday? 

For us, basic goals of adulthood feel like a challenge instead of a milestone. 

“I can’t see the future” actually means the blueprint we have been presented needs to be redrawn. Growing up with varying levels of access to online platforms has exposed us to it all. We have learned that online movements can do more overnight than a decade of physically protesting; we are hyper-aware of the power we could harness and the control we possess.

In between the lines of hope and fear, we neglect to mention the term “persevere”- creating authentic art, obtaining degrees rooted in passion, fighting back while we still can. Uncertainty doesn’t mean having to feed into anxiety and extinction. Yes, the world Gen-Z is maturing in is rough, scary, and extremely unstable. But it’s not too late to define our fate. 

I can’t see the future because it is not here yet.