Welcome to this week's episode of what's at Stake. I'm your host, Brian DeAndeous, a partner here at PENTA, and I'm joined today with one of my colleagues, Lauren Wolfson, and a good friend and friend of the pod, Dan Cox. Dan's a pollster and director and founder of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute. Dan and I go way back and we've done a lot of work together around the research he looks into on American life, on the intersection of religion, politics, and what we're going to talk about today is generations and the difference between the generations. We're also joined by Kelsey Iyer Hammond, who's Dan's co-author on a lot of the research that just came out from the center on Gen Z. Dan Kelsey, thank you both for joining. Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, happy to be here.
Speaker 1:And Lauren, thank you for jumping in the pilot seat.
Speaker 3:I'm happy to be back.
Speaker 1:Love it. So, dan, I want to get into your report and the survey you just released, but I'll start with what piqued my interest and caused me to ask you to come back onto the show again. You wrote a piece for your sub-stack American Storylines, I want to say about a month ago, and it was about this idea are generational labels meaningless? I think it was Pew that came out and was saying a little bit about do we really need to focus on all these labels? And we've seen this more and more as a push to abandon how we label different generations. But your piece kind of pushed back on that and I'd love you to just kind of dive into that and explain your thinking on generational labels.
Speaker 4:And when we talk about generations, we should note that there are a number of ways that different researchers, different polling outfits do this. So if they do have Generation Z and millennial labels in their research, they may not all have the same definition. So it's important just to note that at the outset, we have followed the way Pew does traditionally. So for us, when we're talking about Generation Z, we're talking about people who were born between 1997 and 2012. So the oldest members of the Generation Z cohort are 26. And so in our survey, we talked to people who were between the ages of 18 and 26.
Speaker 4:And so I think there's no right way to do this kind of research, and one of the things that I wanted to push back on what we're seeing in the academy rising criticism of the use of these labels and these categories and my concern was well, they are imperfect, but what is the alternative?
Speaker 4:People are misusing them.
Speaker 4:If you look at some of the way people are reporting on these groups, the biggest critique, which I think is absolutely valid, is that people are saying well, you are Generation Z and you behave this way because you're a member of Generation Z, so you're ascribing personality traits to an entire group of people who are quite diverse in many respects, and so I wanted to take it back to say, ok, this is not really an appropriate way to handle it. What do we mean and what defines Generation Z are shared formative experiences, and in the past that would be a major event. So living through the Great Depression, living through 9-11, those kind of seminal experiences that impacted your worldview and doesn't have to be a major national incident like an act of terrorism or an earthquake. It could be something much more mundane, like changing family structures. So being raised in a divorced household, which is much more common, being raised by two parents who are both in the workforce these had really formative impacts as well, and it's one of the reasons that I think these generational categories are important.
Speaker 1:And first of all thank you for politely not correcting me. I think I misspoke. It wasn't Pew who came out against the labels, it was someone aiming at Pew for using the labels.
Speaker 4:But we'll do some live fact checking here. Yeah, pew did, and they have adapted, I think, because they've received some constructive criticism.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fair. So you were starting to say in many ways, the labels are more important or more meaningful than ever and some of that, like you said, signature events. But even as we think about technology and we've got to certainly we can talk about the iPhone and we can talk about even folks growing up in the school and workforce on laptops. My kids use laptops every day in the classroom. We had literally a computer lab where we got 45 minutes a day a week to learn on it back when I went to school. But these are big things that do unite a generation and define them and even as we look forward to issues like AI, it seems like those are truly important factors that bring this together.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that's right. So the one thing I didn't mention is technological change, and for folks who study this and believe in the importance of generations, one of the things they really focus on is the fact that the way technology has manifested in our daily lives is really revolutionizing the way we're operating day to day, and I'll use my own kids as an example. So I have a five and a seven year old, and they're growing up talking to computers, right, they're talking to Alexa. They're engaging in a way that no other generation has ever done before, and I think it will just continue to be that we operate that way, that we engage that way. Ai is another example.
Speaker 4:I mean smartphones. There's been a ton written on smartphones how that's changing the way we socialize, the amount of time we spend in various social contexts. Right, it has had a remarkable impact on our daily lives in ways that are really generationally distinct, right, and if you got a cell phone or a smartphone at the age of 12, that's really different than getting it at 22, at 32. And so that's what we mean when we say that these experiences are unique because of when they occurred.
Speaker 1:And how much are you seeing that between adjacent generations? Like I know, you've just released a study on Gen Z. How much either difference or maybe similarity is there between Gen Z and millennials versus Gen Z and boomers on this count?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think there's in some ways and on some questions you see, a lot of commonalities. Obviously, millennials and Gen Z are racially, ethnically, religiously much more diverse than older generations. They're much more likely to adopt a pluralistic mindset and embrace differences in ways that older generations are somewhat less likely to. So those kind of things you see probably more commonality, but in other ways you see these generations really distinct, and one of the ways that we saw in that survey was attitudes around gender and feminism, where you see much larger gaps among Gen Z than you do among millennials.
Speaker 1:Lauren, you've done some research into how Gen Z and millennials kind of view each other. What are you seeing in that research?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think, a lot of similar things to what Dan and Kelsey have seen too. I think with any research or anytime you're analyzing groups, there's not one group that is monolithic, but I definitely do agree that there are different macro forces that shape the experience of different generations. Going from big world events again to technology is a very big one, especially between millennials and Gen Z. That seems to be the biggest divider. Did you grow up and have social media at high school, college or did you not? And so I think some of the research that we've done actually shows again to Dan's point that there's much more similarities between, let's call it, gen Z and millennials than not. But we have seen a couple of key differences. One is around just how communities are formed. Gen Z I think millennials are a bit more likely to rely on social media to explore and discover and post and share with communities that they've already formed, whereas Gen Z, while also doing those things, is much more likely to use social media to convene like-minded communities. So shared passions, shared hobbies, shared interests, finding that space online to or to express themselves, but also to find like-minded people, and I think that's one key difference that we see.
Speaker 3:And I think another difference is a lot of millennials' experiences were shaped by the recession and financial collapse in 2008., and so it was very hard to get a job. You had to very present yourself as in the best way quote unquote possible, based on what was being defined by these companies to conform to what that looks like. Gen Z entered the workforce up until COVID, and even through COVID, in a boom, and so there's a different expectation around you know like, or different understanding of what authenticity looks like being unfiltered, showing up for yourself and I think they've had an amazing impact on bringing Gen Z's, had an amazing impact on bringing mental health more into the workplace, because you don't need to hide the things like that about yourself that you're used to. So, yeah, so there's definitely some interesting cultural shifts and impacts, particularly coming from Gen Z, on a number of different issues and topics.
Speaker 2:Add to what Lauren was saying, I think what she's stopped talking about with kind of these you know, really formative events shaping the way that Gen Z millennials engage in the workforce. We see that a lot with social media too. Our data has showed that millennials were more likely than Gen Zers to feel kind of like a FOMO, like a fear of missing out, when using social media, and Gen Zers were more likely to feel connected to others and I think that could even tie back to you know, the pandemic and being isolated from other people and Gen Zers growing up with social media being this tool to help them build friendships, build communities with like-minded people. Like Lauren was saying, whereas millennials it was always sort of a bridge to being in person with somebody, like social media was kind of always a way to create in person relationships, whereas for Gen Zers that social media is the connector, and so I don't. I think that kind of that kind of was shown to us during the pandemic as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's similar where I wanted to head and especially thinking about it through our workforce lens. Whether you think about your own employees or you think about you know, lauren and I help clients think about how they engage with their employees and talk to them. You do have a big difference here to Lauren's point of a generation that went through a financial crisis, went through 9-11, which even kind of rippled, obviously through the workforce as well. And you know, gen Z that's like much more independent, sort of had that COVID experience where they were very much building communities, you know, alone, building communities online, but not, you know, socializing in a workforce. We're still, I think a lot of companies are still down to like two, three days a week in the office maybe, and so there's not that itch or desire for that community again. Do you, do you all, see that as kind of a permanent attribute of Gen Z, or is that something that may evolve over time as we move past events like COVID?
Speaker 4:I mean that's a really difficult thing to predict. I mean the.
Speaker 1:That's a tough one. I threw a curve off.
Speaker 4:Sorry, I think we're still seeing the kind of after effects from the pandemic. I think it's going to play out over years as opposed to months. It was incredibly disruptive socially. We know that people doing school remotely, you know, internships were done over Zoom and all these social experiences were lost as a result. In our survey we found that no generation were less likely to socialize as teenagers with friends in person than Generation Z, significantly less than millennials and much less than Generation X, who happen to be the most likely to engage in those kinds of activities. So I think some of that was likely due to the pandemic. I think was also due to the uptake in social media replacing some of those in-person activity time. In the future I think there's going to be a shift in how people use that right. So I think the amount Gen Z spends on social media as a 20 year old is gonna be different as a 30 and a 40 year old, when you have other responsibilities and your relationships may change, but the impact, I think, will carry on.
Speaker 1:Let me ask it maybe a different way too your most recent survey? It showed that Gen Z and millennials I think roughly around six and 10 for both categories stay. The pandemic significantly influenced their life and that number drops 47 for Gen X, 43 for I believe that's baby boomers, 37 for the silent generation. I'm interested did you get any sense from the research? Do Gen Z and millennials see that as a positive influence, and not necessarily like they enjoyed the pandemic, but it just made them think about how they're gonna pursue their life or their career or differently, whereas the older generations? This was a moment wasn't very fun, but it's past and I'm back to kind of where I was in 2019.
Speaker 4:Well, there's no person that is better equipped to answer that than Kelsey.
Speaker 2:So we actually asked people to share open ended responses with us about how the pandemic affected them and we got about 2,300 of those and the majority of them were. There was a mix, but the majority of the people what we're saying the majority of them were pretty negative. They were like, well, I dropped out of school or my college was on Zoom or something like this. There was definitely a mix where you would see some people say, oh, I got a lot closer with my family because we were all together in the same house doing our various jobs or doing our various school, those things like that. But I do think that Gen Zers are specifically aware of the way that the pandemic impacted their progression socially. I think that I don't think it's just older generations looking at Gen Zers and saying, oh look, they don't know how to socialize because of the pandemic. Like Gen Zers themselves are very aware of the way that that was stunted. Based on what we're seeing, they know that that was a negative thing for them and for their education and things like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think also just for, like, secondary connections and what that means. Like I forget exactly what the book is, but there's a whole theory on how your new jobs and your partner and a lot of things that happen that you can make happen for yourself in life doesn't come from your first tier of friends. It comes from your second tier, like the network effect, and you touched earlier upon return to work and collaboration. I think the I don't think we're going back to five days a week in the office, but I do think that there will be a recognition of the importance of building your kind of expanded community network relationships with people that are not necessarily exactly in your inner circle in a way that will pay off later and I think that is starting to be a driving reason why people are going to come back and return to it and return to in-person all the stuff.
Speaker 3:I think the other thing, just to circle around and we work a lot with clients that are very on the leading edge of culture and they're focusing on Gen Alpha and I think that that generation, even younger than Gen Z, is going to be super charged in many different ways in terms of values, in terms of what being online means and less distinction between online and offline versus a completely immersive, blended experience, both in when you think about community, when you think about social commerce, when you think about collaborations, all this stuff. And I think that the factor that's going to be super charged there is just the access to technology, ai, what that means.
Speaker 4:I want to jump on something that Lauren said. I was nodding away vigorously as you were talking about the what sociologists call weak social ties. Right, they're these people that are not your immediate friends or family, but they're sort of the next ring out, and there's a lot of research that shows that these folks are really important for connecting you to different social contexts. So, whether that's a more diverse context, whether it's helping you find a new job and connecting you to different types of folks in those orbits, and then the other thing is it's incredibly important as a sort of broader connective tissue. So when we have really strong, weak, really strong weak social ties, overall social trust is higher.
Speaker 4:And we saw during the pandemic there was even an Atlantic article written about this that the pandemic absolutely decimated these relationships. So whether it was the person down the hall that you worked with, that you saw occasionally and chatted with, or a barista that you saw every day, or the regular bus driver that took you to the office, I mean these relationships just atrophied and I don't think they've been replaced and I think it's one of the reasons you see a number of young workers preferring more time in the office. So they can't tell these relationships. There's not a lot of other options. If you look at that and we did a study over the summer on this if you look at where people are sort of forging strong connections and making friendships, the office is a really crucial place for people to do that, and so I think we're gonna see. We'll see what employers do, but I think there's gonna be some demand for regular interactions that are gonna foster those relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good point. I was gonna tease Lauren a minute ago. I hope our DC staff is not listening because we're five days in the office and it's a very light enforcement of that five days. But you see, the most recent college graduates, our youngest staff, are in there five days a week pretty regularly and almost perfect attendance, whereas probably myself included at times the parents, the 30s, the 40 year olds they're looking for more flexibility. They're in and out of the office a little bit more and it's because they have that network already. They have that existing relationship. They've already worked with us and their clients for years. Like they've got that second, even third tier of network and they don't quite need to build it in the same way that younger folks do.
Speaker 4:I would say too that they have other options right Like. So there are other institutions that can help them right. So if you're a parent, you are connected to a school, which opens up a whole another way to connect with folks. If you, particularly if you own a home, you've sort of established yourself a neighborhood, you're more likely to, you know, engage with your neighbors. So there are advantages that older people have just because of where they're situated, in ways that younger folks, just many of which don't have access to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Dan, you mentioned trust a minute ago and we talk a lot about, you know, the deterioration of trust among you know, institutions, politicians, you know, and I think we're. It's interesting. I want to, I'm trying to figure out the right way to ask this question, but I do want to ask about what we're seeing today around, like the Israel-Palestine conflict, the, you know, we're seeing a lot of, I think, vocal, it seems like vocal Gen Z on one side of the issue. That's sort of surprising a lot of other generations. If you will think about it that way, how much of that is, you know, driven in your mind by, maybe, social media and communities just having a louder and bigger platform now, and how much of that, maybe, is driven by just the lack of trust and people getting out there and voicing things that you know because there's not a trusted institution they follow and listen to on some of these bigger issues, or maybe all of the above?
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's a couple of ways to answer that, but I will say that this is one of the reasons.
Speaker 4:there are many reasons polls are really important, but one of the reasons is these kind of impressionistic, anecdotal you know, experiences, events that are shown over social media are not at all representative of often of what the broader population thinks, and you definitely see this when it comes to the Israel Hamas war, right? So there's a you go poll that I'm looking at right now. So if you look at where 18 29 year olds are, they're much more likely to approve than disprove of Biden's handling of the situation. That's an impression that you would not get if you just you know scroll through TikTok or looked at Twitter for the most part, but that's where Americans are, and I think there's also not a lot of nuance in 60 second videos. There's a complete lack of context in many cases. So I think you know we need to be really careful before reacting to what we're seeing online, Like you maybe just shouting at some extremists with no falling, and then lifting that voice and that perspective up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I think it also depends on the arena, right. So, like this generational divide, that the perceived generational divide around this war right now, the arena right now is on college campuses in terms of where the activism is, and it's undoubtedly going to spill into other arenas and impact our client. Like you know, I think a lot of our client, like a lot of people, got through the first wave of it of talking up theory on how to talk about it, and now is there's a bit of a quiet period, but it is going to continue to have a bit be a catalyst for for activism and other arenas too. It just it will see where it goes.
Speaker 1:And is it fair to say it's? Does it foreshadow a bit of a future where, you know, even global conflicts, there won't be necessarily a United United States consumer view on issues? You know, you saw that after 9, 11. And sure, there were different voices. I don't want to overstate anything but but you know you saw pretty united.
Speaker 3:I also think this is the role like of, where, like fractured media and social media, plays in too.
Speaker 3:Yeah totally and like that.
Speaker 3:That wasn't a thing after 9 11.
Speaker 3:And I do think that with each generation, there's been stronger and stronger points of views expected and expressed, but but I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3:I think the thing to think about from this perspective and from this kind of divide that we're all feeling, experiencing, observing, is that there are a lot of good things about social media in terms of a place for empowerment and information and all this stuff, and then, where the downside of it in this situation is, there's a lot of shouting to Dan's point, there's a lot of things the nuance missing, there's a lot of not really speaking to one another, and so I don't know who the role of this is for. But there is going to be a role for someone to be a convener of respectful and engaging dialogue on really complex topics, and maybe that is some brands and companies, maybe it is other players. But I think we have to redefine what responsible activism is from the perspective of the different, all the different institutions that we work with in terms of understanding, listening, empathy, all these things that seem to have gotten lost from that, from this debate.
Speaker 4:I worry too a little bit and I try not to opine so much but that there's a sense that social media can replace the kind of institution building and participation that we've seen.
Speaker 4:There's been a real decline in institutional trust, obviously across the board, almost any institution you look at, from the military to police to judges and judiciary, congress and the presidency.
Speaker 4:If you look at the way young people think about their own country, the levels of patriotism is far, far lower than previous generations and I think that's the kind of broader context within which they're making these critiques about US foreign policy. It's that there's already a lack of trust about the federal government's past actions and I think there's a good reason in some cases to be a little bit more cynical about the motives and the judgments made in the past. But I think there's a kind of overreaction in some cases. In most cases these are really really extraordinarily complicated events. Often case there's no one bad guy, one good guy, but I think there's now the pendulum has swung almost too much in the opposite direction. Whatever, anything that US does is immediately suspect and we should rely more on other sources, whether it's other leaders or other sort of US media, to try to make sense of it all, where I think that's probably not helpful in some ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you see, Dan, you've been studying this for a long time. As you look at the data over time, do you see that idea of not trusting certain institutions change as generations age? I'm over simplifying here, but the protesters of the 60s are now grandparents. Like, do you see that? Or is it more permanent kind of attribute of each generation?
Speaker 4:There's always, I think, some amount of sort of generational disaffection, right when you are born into a culture and a society and you live under a political system that you didn't create, that you had no hand in affirming, and you may feel really different about that.
Speaker 4:And I look at the kind of generational cleavages we're seeing now in terms of culture, whether it's sexuality or abuse on abortion use, on foreign policy, you do see really significant, stark generational divides, and I think it's not a coincidence that our institutions are also aging significantly Congress is as old as I think it's ever been and I think it engenders some amount of resentment among the younger generation thinking well, the things that I care about climate change, reproductive health, gun violence are not being addressed, or at least I'm not perceiving them as being addressed in any real manner. So I feel like I'm kind of outside and don't really have a voice in this broader debate that's occurring and I think it can, yeah, lead to people wanting to work outside the system to make change. The interesting thing is, is generation is actually pretty politically active. They voted in the 2018 election. In the 2022 midterm were historic highs for youth participation. I mean, there's still much lower than older folks, but that's really, I think, really notable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good point. Let me wrap up maybe on a lighter note, but still a serious note. When we think about our companies and brands and even institutions address generational differences and we've seen the conflict between generations, the okay boomer means and different companies appealing to different parts of that, how deep do you think that is? How much is that contributing to kind of cultural wedges? And any final thoughts on kind of the implications of that on society and institutions going forward, I'm gonna pitch this one to Kelsey Kelsey.
Speaker 4:any thoughts?
Speaker 2:I do think that kind of what you mentioned about generational conflict is important, I think, specifically within families, that's kind of where we see it the most.
Speaker 2:I mean, jen's ears are interacting with boomers who are their grandparents.
Speaker 2:They're not interacting with anyone who isn't their family, who's that much older than them. But I do think that there's sort of the lack of respect that sometimes can come because of that is sort of something to know and be aware of and maybe even be concerned about, just because I think that there I mean, and it's not new for an older generation to think that the youngest generation is lazy, you know, has been around for over a century or forever probably, and but I do think that the the lack of respect on the other side is sort of growing. And I think a lot of that does have to do with social media and with just like the way that this discourse, technology has changed so much and so younger people sort of feel like older people don't really understand them at all, you know, and so I don't know. I do think that there's work to be done there and bridging the gap between the youngest and the oldest generations, just because we would all be wrong to assume that we can't learn anything from the generation Right.
Speaker 4:You know yeah, I've definitely seen the memes of the young workers making fun of their very well paid bosses and not knowing how to convert a doc to a PDF.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right and Lauren, I guess on the flip side, we see a lot of consumer trends of, you know, targeting older audiences, but in a way that makes them younger, hip, or feel like they're part of the generation, like that's.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, there was a great, there's been great memes around, you know, the portrayal of the golden girls versus what six year olds look like running marathons today, and so there, I think there's there's definitely a changing ship there, I mean, I do. I do think it all comes down to but to respect and under spike, understanding and trying to find these moments of generations coming together in a way that's a bit more unifying, I think. I think we can all aspire to that, and I think the last thing that I'll throw out there that we haven't talked about is that the Olympics are next year, which is totally meant to be a unifying event across the world and across generations, and, like the question is, given everything going on, will it be so? Hopefully brands can play a role in in overcoming some of the divisiveness that might come out in the Olympics and really be a unifying force. So it's my hope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that seems. That seems a good place to leave the conversation. We'll do it to be continued next year with the Olympics and have you guys back on for that one. But Dan Kelsey, thank you so much. I know we we kind of jumped all over the place in the different points of your research, but thank you for joining and helping us kind of think through this a little bit. We appreciate it.
Speaker 4:No, of course Same very much enjoyed it. Thank you both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks, and thanks to all our listeners. Remember you can like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow us on Twitter at Pented g rp. I'm your host, brian DeAndres. As always, thanks for listening to what's at stake.