Ryan Vet on Still Launching: Why Gen Z Isn't Broken

Evan, thank you so much for having me.

There's just so many things that are unique about Gen Z that make it different than any generation we've encountered. Before we get too far deep into the generational labels — obviously I study generations, so I use labels, but I use them very sparingly, because every individual within that span of years has their own story, has different parents of different ages, different siblings. But when you're looking at Gen Z, the way I define it is from 1997 to 2012. Those are the birth years. And really you see in that time frame some of the most formative years being shaped by technology. Now, millennials of course were exposed to technology throughout their entire life. But what makes Gen Z so interesting is they don't know life without technology being really a part of our everyday life. And when I say technology, I'm not just talking about internet. I'm talking about the smartphone, and I'm talking about social media in particular, which created a whole new experience for a generation. And we didn't really know what technology was doing, what they had access to, until — in many cases, I don't like using the term too late, because I don't ever believe it's too late, but we didn't realize the impact that it had on their lives in their formative years until much later.

Sadly, they don't. Blockbuster is — well, thanks to maybe Stranger Things or some of these other movies and sitcoms and TV shows set in the '80s, maybe. But what you're starting to see with Gen X is, you hit the nail on the head. Gen X is not afraid of technology because of the way they were raised. They were raised, you know, they could be outside till the street lights came on. They had, in many cases — I argue — the best childhood in recent history. And they still had arcades. They had Pac-Man. They had technology. They had more than one screen in the house, which is a big moment. We have to think about that too. They started to see, especially later Gen X, maybe two TVs in the house, or one in a basement and a family room area. So they did start to see this evolution. So it did start with them, but we really saw this uptick even past millennials when it came to the smartphone. It's probably one of the biggest indicators. Jonathan Haidt, in The Anxious Generation, does a fantastic job marking 2012 as sort of this monumental year. Now, I don't think that's the whole story, and I don't think that characterizes every person within a generation, but you do see this generation that has grown up completely watched, completely expected to basically fake it till they make it — and fake it in front of their friends, which creates all sorts of issues with trust and ways they communicate. They often come across as disengaged or disrespectful, which might not actually be the true story underneath all of those labels.

Yeah, there's quite a lot that goes on. And I think one of the biggest things that people have to remember — and I bring this back to millennials, so let's skip back a generation. When you look at millennials in 2008 and 2009, all the headlines we're reading: why are millennials not buying houses? Well, the reality is most of them didn't even have a driver's license yet. There were some millennials, very few, old enough to legally buy a house. We're talking about 18, 19 years old — but what 18 or 19 year olds are buying a house? There's not many of those around. And so we started to cast these labels: on why aren't millennials buying houses, why are millennials lazy, why are they delaying jobs, all of these questions. But the reality is the whole generation wasn't even old enough to hit some of these markers. So when we talk about Gen Z, if you're looking at that cohort by definition, some of them are teenagers still. They haven't even thought about college yet. And some of them are entering high school for the first time this year. So we've got some that are in that bucket, but then you fast forward to the earlier-born Gen Z, the ones born in the late '90s — they're already into the workforce and now they're starting families. So you have a large range of individuals that are there. And so I think one of the things we have to be so careful with is characterizing and saying, "Hey, they're all lazy, they're all disengaged." But then we also have to think about how they were raised. So when you think about formation — when you're staring in front of this device the whole time, your communication, your whole technology becomes what you're looking at right here in front of your face. You learn to write really well, or at least write quickly and respond quickly. A lot of it's in shorthand, but you're more comfortable with a written word than a spoken word. And the great thing is, right now, if you ask me a question and I just stare at you, your listeners are going to think their screen froze. They're going to start hitting refresh. However, in text communication, or even Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, you name it — you don't have to respond right away. And so it creates this barrier, and Gen Z often gets accused of not communicating well, not communicating back. You have the Gen Z stare, which is a real phenomenon — I documented it in one of my essays. But all these things in large part are due to technology, and it doesn't mean that the generation is broken. It means that as leaders and as parents it's our job to figure out where those gaps are in the formative years, and how do we bring them along?

And I think you just said one of the worst things that anyone can say, but it's so easy and we all do it. It's "What's wrong with kids these days?" or "when I was your age." And we do that so often, and I'm guilty of it. You know, when I was your age — to my Gen Alpha kids — you know, when I was your age we didn't have to do this, or if I got a splinter I'd figure out how to take it out myself. Don't come running to me. And we're always tough on the next generation. But if we really stop and look at some of the data — I often share what I call the Generational Prism. And that Generational Prism looks at three factors. It looks at the age someone is, the moment in time that they exist, and then after that, a prism reflects or refracts light, and that's the answer. And so one of the big things I look at is, everyone says millennials — I'm rewinding a generation again, because there's more data on full generations in the workforce — they said millennials are job hoppers. They're hopping everywhere and all of that. Well, if you go back, millennials only hopped jobs 0.3 times more than boomers or Gen X by the time they were 25. They didn't have 10 more jobs. They didn't have three more jobs. They had 0.3 more jobs than both their parents and maybe their grandparents, depending on where they were born on that spectrum. And so everyone's like, "Wait, that doesn't make sense." Well, we often don't remember what those moments were like when we were younger. And if you look at it — that's the age component, is by age 25. You look at the moment: well, baby boomers had almost no child labor laws in the United States. So they could work at 12, 13, 14. You have Gen X that started to have some child labor laws depending on where you were, and so you're looking at 15, 16 for a first job, sometimes 14. And then most millennials, they didn't start their first job till about 22, after college. So did they hop more jobs in a finite amount of time? Absolutely they did. So there is truth to that. But we have to look at it as — you know what, you were trying to get your reps when you worked at Dairy Queen or when you worked at Target or when you worked at wherever it was, and you realized you didn't like that boss, and you didn't like that work environment, and you didn't like dealing with customers in that way, and you had to clean the toilet. You didn't like sales. And whatever it was, you learned all of those things over a longer period of time. Gen Z didn't work — and that's a gross generalization, but most Gen Zers didn't have to lift a finger, especially if they were in middle or upper middle class. They were expected to go to college. That was the expectation as a whole. And then when they get out to the workforce, they're going to have bad bosses. I know for a fact you and I have both had bad bosses. We have had bad clients. We have had all sorts of toxic work environments. And now all of that's getting compressed into what you're expecting someone to come to the workforce for the first time — but they didn't flip burgers at McDonald's. They didn't get the oil spat around their hands and get yelled at by somebody and, you know, see drugs being dealt out of the back. I'm not saying that happens at McDonald's, but growing up, you know, I had that experience. So all of those things play into what shapes and forms us as individuals. And if you don't have those formative experiences, and all your formation is happening from Instagram and TikTok reels here on your phone, you're not going to get that robust experience that some of the previous generations did. So we've actually done a disservice to Gen Z, and now it's our job to come in and — I don't want to say fix it, but at least provide the opportunities for them to fall down and learn and fail, and tell them it's okay.

Yep. And when they're older, we're like, "Oh well, they're 22, 23, 24. They should know all this stuff by now." But they don't.

Exactly. You said trust — you brought up that idea, and I think that's such an important idea, because each generation trusts differently. For boomers, they wanted stability. For Gen X, they wanted more reliability in people, whereas boomers, it was stability in institutions. And millennials, they wanted information. That was their source of trust — like, the more information they could consume, the better. Well, Gen Z had too much information. So they said they wanted authenticity. And they want this authentic view of trust. But you said they don't trust themselves, and I think there's a large part of that that's accurate, because they haven't had to think for themselves. And I think, again, that's where — you know, I don't want to blame parents. I'm a parent. You always second guess, and we're not perfect. But as a society, we didn't give this whole generation an opportunity to earn trust. We wouldn't let them leave the house without tracking devices, or leave the house at all. We just stick them in front of the iPad because it was safer, and nothing bad would happen if they weren't playing outside. They couldn't get stung by the bee or get that splinter that they'd have to figure out. And so they never learned how to trust themselves, how to trust others in the way that previous generations did. Not saying all the previous generations got it right, but they had a different experience that Gen Z just never had, because we didn't allow them to have it — in the hopes that we were keeping them safer and giving them a better future.

They didn't have parents, or the community, or even society trusting in them to do that. I mean, when your kids were growing up — think about this. Mall restrictions came in. You couldn't be under 18 at a mall. That was formative for Gen X, and you were 9, 10, 11 at the mall. But now if you walk into some of these big box retailers unsupervised, they get security out there and ask where your parents were. And so, just a totally different experience. And then it's not just parents, it's society. We're looking at these kids as kids still, and they're adults — but we never gave them the opportunity to experience, in a safe environment, the hardness that life brings.

Yeah, absolutely. Right. There absolutely were. But there are also some downsides, because nobody was emotionally connecting with us.

And now we've kind of overcorrected. And so then we just put these labels on them, as disrespectful or lazy or things like that.

Yeah. And I mean, there is an element where they do show more disrespect. Our rules for respect are different by generation. We each respect differently. One generation was respect the title, respect the institution — that was boomers. Gen X was respect the adult, because if not, you're going to go get taken out back and, you know, you're going to have some corporal punishment. And then for millennials, respect totally changed. And that was the first generation we saw that, because you could access anybody — again, going to the phone. Millennials could slide into the president's DMs if they wanted to, or any celebrity they wanted to. Are they going to get a response? Probably not. But there was no barrier. You no longer had to pick up the phone, go through the white pages, dial an operator, and meet with the gatekeeper. It's all one step away, even professionally with LinkedIn. And so you saw them drop titles like doctor and Mrs. and Mister and go casual, first-name basis — even with school teachers and professors. We saw this huge decline with millennials because the rules of respect changed. Not saying they should have or shouldn't have, but then you fast forward to Gen Z and that just continues on the pattern.

And giving them opportunities to build some of those experiences and some of those life skills. I mean, you used "overcorrect" twice now, and that's part of the pendulum that I often write about. It's first we experience something, and then we often challenge it. We don't like the way it is, we push against it — that's usually in our formative years. And then as parents, we often overcorrect. And then finally society recalibrates. So we're even seeing that with Gen Alpha and now Gen Beta. Gen Beta started being born in 2026. We're starting to see it come back, where Gen Z parents and younger-born millennials, they're not allowing their kids any screen time. They're forcing them to go outside. They're engaging in schools that are more skills-based. They're totally transforming those early years, because they're saying, "I was messed up because of my parents, so let me overcorrect." And somewhere in there is the conversation that I have so often, which is AI. You know, how's that impacting kids, and what's that going to do to them? We thought — you know, we were worried about social media. What's AI going to do? And there's some really scary stats we can unpack there with Gen Z and AI use already.

Yeah, the best way is to head over to my website, ryanvet.com. You can access the Ryan Vet Show, my podcast. You can access any of my books that I've written. There's a free newsletter that comes out weekly called COLLIDE that does a lot of this research in a much more in-depth, accurately stated way. You know, I do things from the top of my memory on podcasts — I try to keep it accurate, but you can get the actual stats and data there on the COLLIDE newsletter too.