GenZ and COVID-19: How Will A Pandemic Change These Digital Natives and How Can We Learn from Them?
Jennifer Openshaw discussing GenZ, technology, and COVID-19 with Anna Blue
By Jody Bell
If you can’t tell already, here at Girls With Impact we are big fans of the girls in GenZ—our after-school extracurricular program was literally built to empower this next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs. Turns out we’re not alone.
Anna Blue, Chief Next Gen Officer at The Female Quotient, states that “This is the most powerful generation we have seen—digital natives with 44 billion in spending power.”
Whether you credit their activism, independence, technology, or economics, GenZ is a force to be reckoned with. Yet, they have been hit hard by COVID-19 and the related issues. Their high schools and colleges are closing, they are entering a job market that is in shambles, and they’re doing all this in the middle of a pandemic. Jennifer Openshaw had the opportunity to discuss this adversity and with Anna Blue — a woman heavily embedded in GenZ.
What Does COVID-19 Means for GenZ
While science is telling us GenZ is less physically impacted by COVID-19, the position that the pandemic has put them in is more than precarious.
As Anna points out, there is this predetermined path that many of us find comfort in; “you’re in K-8th grade schooling, graduate from high school, you may choose to go to college, then get a job.” But, not in the era of COVID-19. Now you have athletes that are reliant on athletic scholarships unable to play their senior year of high school. Young people unsure of what their education will look like. Soaring unemployment rates and a dwindling economy adds to the worry of this generation, making them question if they will even have a job in the next 5 years.
Other generations understand this uncertainty to some extent — we all do not truthfully know when this will end. But, imagine having your life plan being completely turned around? Imagine this uncertainty clouding not only the next few years, but your entire life.
COVID-19— Time for the Digital Natives to Shine
Aside from the obvious long-term repercussions and anxiety GenZ is feeling, there is one thing they don’t need to worry about too much—technology.
GenZ is patiently waiting for the world to catch up to their digital expertise during COVID-19. As adults struggle to transition onto virtual communication platforms, GenZ seamlessly switches from Zoom, to Skype, to text, to Facetime, to email, with no qualms. As Blue points out, “it’s an opportunity for the rest of the world to change their opinions on GenZ.” Currently, when you search “GenZ” on google images, every single picture is a child engrossed in their phone or computer. It plays directly into the stereotypical “lazy, self-absorbed, technology obsessed” GenZ poster child that many adults unfortunately still subscribe to.
However, these adults are now recognizing that “They are the most advanced generation in regard to having meaningful conversations in a digital world.” These are the exact skills that are necessary during this period of digital communication that now defines 2020.
It is crucial that we turn to this generation for aid during this time and allow them to teach us in ways that will not only mend this generational divide but push us forward after COVID-19.
Jody Bell, 19, is Girls With Impact’s Chief Editor and a program graduate. Girls With Impact is the nation’s only online, after-school, entrepreneurship program for teen girls, turning them into tomorrow’s business leaders and innovators.