Yes, that Gen Z.
Pajama-bottom-wearin’, “bruh”-sayin’, heads-in-their-phones Generation Z.
They are primed to usher in a new era of innovation. And I mean, like, telephone-, electricity-, printing press- level innovation. History will know them as The Genius Generation.
Think I’m crazy? Are you LOLing? Hear me out.
Generation Z are gamers and digital processors. They are constantly solving problems and reviewing information. They are self-taught, preferring to learn on their own, supplemented by the education system. They have access to unlimited information. They quickly scan material and their attention spans are short, leading to wide arrays of interests.
All the ingredients are there. Their impact on innovation is likely to be enormous.
I’ll preface with a reminder: Generations change as they age. I am a member of Generation X, once known as the Slacker Generation. No longer a fitting moniker. We grew up with little parental supervision and high expectations of achievement. We wanted to pave our way in independence and it showed in rebellion against the status quo. It also made us a generation with a lot of ability, adaptability, and opportunity.
Read: Why Generation X is uniquely equipped to make their dreams come true.
Right now, Generation Z can seem disconnected from reality and lacking in basic life skills. Of course they are! They know it. This fact is going to shape their more mature selves.
In short, their reality doesn’t suit them, so they will change it. They are not receiving the education they need, and they will overcome that. Their environment is alive with information. They will access it.
Make no mistake, this is not the world they will ultimately live in. They will make a new world for themselves.
The Gaming Generation
Gen Z was born with a smartphone in their hand. They have had computers, consoles, and tablets within arms reach their entire lives. They have never known a world without instant and constant stimulation. They grew up with videos and games on standby for their entertainment and education.
They learned shapes and colors through games. They learned reading and grammar through games. They learned math through games.
They played games and accessed videos before they started preschool. They played games and videos during school hours as a part of their educational experience. They came home and played more games.
As they got older, their games became more sophisticated and complicated. Many contemporary online games require communication, collaboration, and teamwork. They are playing with friends and strangers. They play with people of different ages, nationalities, and belief systems. As teens and young adults they are learning to communicate, collaborate, and problem-solve on the level of higher education and international business, but in the context of gaming.
Don’t underestimate it. This is a skill. And they are obtaining 10s of thousands of hours of practice at it.
Years ago, Jane McGonigal gave a Ted talk called Gaming Can Make a Better World about this very concept – the younger generation was growing exceedingly practiced at problem-solving. She wanted to tap into that.
When you have 20 free minutes, watch the Ted talk by McGonigal posted below.
The No Television Generation
This seems like a minor detail but I think it’s profound. Gen Z is the first generation since its inception to reject television. They have no use for the medium in its traditional capacity.
Well, you say, they are still face-deep in a screen all the time. No difference, right?
WRONG. Their screens are INTERACTIVE. That distinction is everything.
Marketers know that Gen Z gives a medium 8 seconds. In approximately 8 seconds, they size up the information before them and decide whether it deserves more of their time. This is a far cry from plopping in front of the tv and vegging out on cartoons for hours, like we Gen Xers did.
They are not “vegging out”. They are processing, quickly and endlessly. It is not that their attention span has been whittled down to 8 seconds. Their processing time has been streamlined. This is enough time for them to reach the fork in the road. Continue or move on. 8 seconds.
The Self-Educated Generation
Generation Z was born to parents that were older and more educated than any generation before it. Their parents saw value and necessity in extended education. Z has watched highly educated, hard-working parents struggle to make ends meet. They have no illusions. They do not expect a standard education to give them the knowledge they need to succeed and thrive.
Generation Z grew up learning through games and animations. Some research suggests this has impacted their brain structure. Their continual exposure to complex imagery has overdeveloped the part of the brain responsible for visual processing. This means they tend to learn most effectively through visual modes. While educators are catching on and adapting their teaching styles, for much of Gen Z, this transformation will be too late.
In terms of technology, Gen Z is more adept than their educators, and they know it. They often help their instructors set up demonstrations when they struggle in front of the class. In a survey conducted in 2016, 100% of Gen Z respondents said they were confident they knew more about technology than their lecturers. Lecturers agreed, with 80% conceding they knew less of technology than their students.
So, while their brains are wired to learn most effectively through technology, the school system and educators are not fully equipped to provide this. The result?
Many Gen Z students have said they prefer reverse learning – a model where students view lectures and material outside of class and do assignments during class time. They are viewing teacher-provided materials — and supplemental materials from their independent searches — outside of class, and attending class to ask questions and complete assignments.
As it turned out, this flipped model was beneficial when we reached 2020. During the pandemic, Gen Z was sent home to learn online. While the school system struggled to implement the platform, this was no problem for Z.
Evidence shows that the pandemic shutdown may have caused academic performance in math to decline by 5-10%. (Note: Reading scores appear to have been maintained)
Does that sound like a lot?
Consider this: Many schools, before setting up their online-learning infrastructure, were shut down completely toward the end of the 2019-2020 school year, most of them for at least 3 weeks, which accounts for 10-15% of the school year or more. In addition, absenteeism more than doubled during the pandemic due to internet connection instability, quarantine, and other family factors. Many students missed months of school.
In other words, Z missed considerably more formal education time than 5-10%. This shows incredible academic resilience! I suggest this is because Gen Z was not benefiting a ton from the school system anyway. They continued to learn as they always had – essentially on their own, subsidized by educators.
Most of my experience with Gen Z is with my high-school-aged son. He has an amazing knowledge of WWII history and military strategy. He can speak intelligently about this period as though he wrote a master’s thesis on the subject. Did he have a great history teacher? Of course not. He liked WWII games. He was intrigued, which prompted him to do supplemental research.
Talk to your nearest Zoomer. They probably have an encyclopedic knowledge of subjects that interest them. They didn’t learn it at school.
We have not done a good job of educating Gen Z in our traditional schools. They are educating themselves.
Imagine how they will change the education system when they are running it.
The Scanning Generation
Generation Z is infamous for its strikingly short attention spans. They thrive on 60-second TikTok videos and 140 character tweets. They gain their information in snippets, and they prefer to access information from multiple sources.
They might be the first generation of true multi-taskers. When exposed to material, they scan for keywords, taking an average of 8 seconds to size up and digest what they want from it.
One might say that they are easily distracted, being drawn from one article or video to another in rapid succession, quickly skimming, evaluating, and moving on.
We have called this a short attention span, but it could be something else. It could be a high standard for content, a high propensity for quick evaluation, and a high premium on time. And it is smart. This is an evolution in learning.
Imagine this scenario: It’s 1990. You are dropped off at a library and you have 1 hour to learn everything you can about medieval castles. Do you select a book, start at chapter 1, and read for an hour? No! You go to the relevant section of the library and start opening books. You scan through chapter titles, section summaries, bolded phrases, and picture captions. Where you spot something of interest, you read more in-depth.
Their processing and scanning tendencies are practical.
And Z is exploratory. While researching those medieval castles, they may have gotten caught up in medieval body armor, then ancient metallurgy, then the mining of iron ore, and now they are on a webpage about hemoglobin, hardly knowing how they arrived there.
They know how to glean lots of information quickly, and their environment doesn’t have limitations. They are interested in wide arrays of subjects, and that is well-suited for their learning environment and skills.
The Polymath Generation
This access is developing a generation of polymaths – a person with a wide range of knowledge, also known as a renaissance person, generalist, or jack of all trades. Polymaths are experts in multiple, disparate fields.
Generalism is contrary to the specialization that has been a hallmark of formal education for decades. (Imagine selecting three college majors.) But views are beginning to change. Society is being warmed to polymathy by multi-focused powerhouses like Bezos and Musk. This is good because Z will struggle to specialize.
Prediction: Generation Z will contain a lot more Ben Franklins than Stephen Hawkings.
What does that mean? It means innovation.
While specialists use their expertise to enhance and improve current technologies, polymaths are bound to create new….things. New studies, new industries, new technologies. The biggest leaps in innovation occur when two or more concepts are combined to make something previously unimaginable.
Charles Babbage was an English polymath with expansive knowledge in both the fields of mathematics and mechanical engineering. One night he was examining a hand-computed table of logarithms which he knew to be full of errors. It occurred to him that a machine could be developed to perform these calculations. It would not only be faster, but it would also be more accurate. His background allowed him to design and build an electronic machine that could be digitally programmed to perform iterative mathematical computations previously performed by humans. His Analytical Engine is considered a precursor to modern computers. That was 1822.
This is what polymaths do.
The Genius Generation
Through their access, inclinations, and self-education, Gen Z will build the next evolution in technology and society.
Maybe a Zoomer with expansive and well-practiced expertise in neurology and robotics will invent a brain-enhancement device. Or some Z, versed in psychology, physics, and horticulture will create plants that think and talk. I don’t know – they will be the ones with the ideas, not me (obvy).
The point is, things are going to change, and change big.
Gen Z’s brains are literally operating differently than older generations.
They have no limits to the information they can access or share.
They are fast processors with diverse interests and they have been learning, in some form or another, nearly every minute of their waking lives.
As they age and mature, they will learn how to use what they have been given. And there is no limit to what they will be capable of.