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The iGen Shift: Colleges Are Changing to Reach the Next Generation

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The iGen Shift: Colleges Are Changing to Reach the Next Generation

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We rarely read emails or books because are faces and hands are intertwined with our phones. We connect with other people by using social media. Instead of restricting us from using phones, instead they gave us more technology (iPads) to 11,000 incoming students

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Credit... Henning Wagenbreth

The newest students are transforming the way schools serve and educate them, including sending presidents and deans to Instagram and Twitter.

Credit... Henning Wagenbreth

They are, of course, super connected. But on their terms. Which is why college-bound iGens (Gen Zers, if you prefer) present a challenge to the grown-ups on campus eager to reach and teach them.

Consider orientation season. Katie Sermersheim, dean of students at Purdue University, has a mother lode of information and resources to share (including wellness initiatives and a new mindfulness room). But getting iGen's attention?

"It can be frustrating slash extra challenging to figure out how to get the word out, whatever that word is," Ms. Sermersheim said. "I do get discouraged."

A generation that rarely reads books or emails, breathes through social media, feels isolated and stressed but is crazy driven and wants to solve the world's problems (not just volunteer) is now on campus. Born from 1995 to 2012, its members are the most ethnically diverse generation in history, said Jean M. Twenge, psychology professor at San Diego State University.

They began arriving at colleges a few years ago, and now they are exerting their presence. They are driving shifts, subtle and not, in how colleges serve, guide and educate them, sending presidents and deans to Instagram and Twitter.

They are forcing course makeovers, spurring increased investments in mental health - from more counselors and wellness messages to campaigns drawing students to nature (hug a tree, take a break to look at insects) - and pushing academics to be more hands-on and job-relevant.

They are a frugal but ambitious lot, less excited by climbing walls and en suite kitchens than by career development.

Most critically, they expect to be treated as individuals. Students raised amid the tailored analytics of online retailers or college recruiters presume that anything put in front of them is customized for them, said Thomas C. Golden of Capture Higher Ed, a Lexington, Ky., data firm. He sees group designations evolving into "segments of one."

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Ingrid Koester, 19, center, and other Princeton University students shooting a video, based on the Taylor Swift song "22," that welcomes the class of 2022. Orientation leaders and staff members from the office of the dean of undergraduate students were extras in the video. Credit... Mark Makela for The New York Times

Students want to navigate campus life, getting food or help, when it is convenient for them. And, yes, on their mobile devices or phones. "It's not really technology to them," said Cory Tressler, associate director of learning programs at Ohio State University, noting that the iPhone came out when most were in grade school.

It is why Ohio State this year, rather than battle device use, issued iPads to 11,000 incoming students. The school designated 42 fall courses "iPad required" (21 more will be added in the spring) and is building an app that in addition to maps and bus routes has a course planner, grades, schedules and a Get Involved feature displaying student organizations.

In the works is more customization, so when students open the app it knows which campus they are enrolled at, their major and which student groups they belong to.

Speaking to students on their terms just makes sense, said Nicole Kraft, a journalism professor at Ohio State who takes attendance via Twitter (she has separate hashtags for each of her three courses). She posts assignments on Slack, an app used in many workplaces. And she holds office hours at 10 p.m. via the video conference site Zoom, "because that is when they have questions."

Dr. Kraft does not use email for class, except to teach students how to write a "proper" one. "That is a skill they need to have," she said.

While these students are called "digital natives," they still must be taught how to use devices and apps for academic purposes, Dr. Kraft said. She's had students not know that they could use Microsoft Word on an iPad. "We make a lot of assumptions about what they know how to do."

Campuses also have been slow to recognize that this age group is not millennials, version 2.0.

"IGen has a different flavor," said Dr. Twenge of San Diego State University and author of "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy - and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood - and What That Means for the Rest of Us."

It is tricky to define a large part of the population. But Dr. Twenge said big data sets revealed broad psychological patterns shared by those coming of age amid defining social, cultural and economic events.

The difference between growing up in the prosperous 1990s versus seeing family members lose jobs and homes during the 2008 recession alters one's perspective, she said. It is why iGens are so focused on debt and insist that they get skills and experiences that will lead to a career.

The prevalence of school shootings and domestic terrorism has also shaped them.

"This generation defies the stereotypes of young adults," in terms of risk-taking, Dr. Twenge said. They are "more receptive to messages around safety" and less eager to get driver's licenses, and they come to college "with much less experience with sex and alcohol."

They are also more cautious when it comes to academics, fear failure and have learning preferences distinct from millennials, said Corey Seemiller, professor at Wright State University and co-author of "Generation Z Goes to College," who queried 1,200 students on 50 campuses.

"They do not like to learn in groups," favor videos over static content and like to think about information, then be walked through it to be certain they have it right.

"They want a model" and then to practice, said Dr. Seemiller, who posts samples when assigning a paper. "I'll say, 'Let's look through them and see what works.'" Having grown up with public successes and failures online, she said, students are hungry to have a big impact, yet "worry they will not live up to that expectation."

And despite their digital obsession, Dr. Seemiller's research shows this generation favors visual, face-to-face communication over texting. They are not always good at live social interaction, but they crave it. "They want authenticity and transparency," she said. "They like the idea of human beings being behind things."

As a generation that "has been sold a lot of stuff," said Dr. Seemiller, iGens are shrewd consumers of the tone and quality of communication. That's pushing colleges to focus not only on what they say, but also how they say it.

Which is what orientation leaders and staffers in Princeton's office of the dean of undergraduate students - known on social media as ODUS - have tried to master in the way they welcome the class of 2022.

Mayra Mateo of Columbus, Ohio, an incoming freshman at Ohio State University, working on the iPad given to her by the university, which issued the devices to 11,000 incoming students. The college designated many fall courses "iPad required." Credit... Jessica Phelps for The New York Times

A brainstorming session in March generated what became a Princetified cover of Taylor Swift's"22," a video with orientation leaders and ODUS staff members as extras, a cappella groups singing the score and Nicolas Chae, a sophomore, directing.

Cody Babineaux, an incoming freshman from Lafayette, La., whose video of his acceptance to Princeton has 4.6 million Twitter views, appreciated it, especially the Harvard shirt sniffed and tossed out in the first 20 seconds. "It was hilarious," he said. "It didn't try too hard."

Getting student attention and keeping it matters to administrators trying to build excitement for campus events, but also in prodding students about housing contracts and honor codes. "We are an office that enforces university standards. We can't be firing off," said Thomas Dunne, deputy dean of undergraduate students. "But you have to be animated and human-sounding. Our voice is very personal."

ODUS has become an active presence on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter with a vibe that winks, pokes, weaves in memes and slang terms like BAE (before anyone else) and on fleek (flawlessly styled), and applies hashtags with wit (a free ice cream for dropping by the ODUS office with dance moves worthy of Dean Dunne? #GetServed, #GameOfCones).

Mr. Dunne, whose Facebook page began as a student prank without his knowledge more than a decade ago, leans on staff members who include 20-somethings. One, Ian Deas, who favors Snapchat, identifies student "influencers," following them on Facebook and Instagram.

In posts, he looks for "those trendy phrases that help us stay in the conversation." When ODUS staff members respond to student posts, it amplifies their reach. "When we are being interactive, our stuff pops up in other people's feeds" and drives curiosity about "who is behind the voice."

Being social on social media attracts students who might tune out official communication. Mr. Babineaux said he and his friends noted when college posts sounded "goofy" or "like your grandfather trying to say swag."

He also notices that his generation is criticized "because we are always on our phones," which gets interpreted as being disconnected. In fact, he said, "we just have more connection with everyone all the time."

It is also how students like Mr. Babineaux learn and get information.

"Social media has helped me get a lot more prepared for Princeton," he said, adding that he has scrolled through old posts of campus ("I have never seen snow") and watched videos, including of graduation. "I thought, 'That will be on my Instagram page in four years.'"

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The iGen Shift: Colleges Are Changing to Reach the Next Generation (Published 2018)

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The newest students are transforming the way schools serve and educate them, including sending presidents and deans to Instagram and Twitter. Credit... Henning Wagenbreth They are, of course, super connected. But on their terms. Which is why college-bound iGens (Gen Zers, if you prefer) present a challenge to the grown-ups on campus eager to reach and teach them.

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We are so much different than millennials from what people think. Millennials, to this day, live with their parents while Gen Zers are ready to cut loose and be more independent. Instead of waiting for our parents to tell us decisions we should and shouldn't make, we use technology to get ahead.

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Preoccupations

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Credit Credit Michael Hirshon

I recall the exact moment the temperature changed in the workplace. It was 2005, and I was speaking to an audience of 100 young professionals. I was relating my experiences building a career as a Gen Xer (born 1964-79) in a world of traditionalists (born before 1945) and baby boomers (born 1946-63).

Every time I threw out phrases like "paying your dues" and "playing the game," the audience stared at me blankly. This was not the reaction I had come to expect from early twentysomethings. Usually they took notes on how they could get ahead in corporate America as quickly as possible.

I would soon learn, however, that the millennial generation (also known as Generation Y, born after 1980), had come on the scene. Generally speaking, these guys didn't like my advice about coping with bureaucracy and office politics. It seemed to me that some of them didn't want to grow up, but at the same time they felt they deserved to do meaningful work right away. Many were not afraid to speak their minds and made it clear they wanted to change the status quo. And at 80 million strong, they had the numbers to do it.

It took 10 years before most organizations identified the millennials as a talent issue on fire. By now, the oldest millennials are 35. They aren't children anymore - in fact, a majority of them are leaders with decision-making power and direct reports. While executives have been fretting over the millennials, though, a new generation is growing up behind the scenes - Generation Z (born starting in the mid-90s to the early '00s depending on whom you ask). Within the next three years, Gen Zers will be the college grads in my audiences, and they are poised to be somewhat different from the millennials.

I've now had the opportunity to meet lots of Gen Zers, and here's what I've noticed. To start, they tend to be independent. While a 2015 Census Bureau report found that nearly a third of millennials are still living with their parents, Gen Zers are growing up in a healthier economy and appear eager to be cut loose. They don't wait for their parents to teach them things or tell them how to make decisions. As demonstrated by the teenagers attending the recent Generation Z Conference at American University in Washington, Gen Z is already out in the world, curious and driven, investigating how to obtain relevant professional experience before college. Despite their obvious technology proficiency, Gen Zers seem to prefer in-person to online interaction and are being schooled in emotional intelligence from a young age. Thanks to social media, they are accustomed to engaging with friends all over the world, so they are well prepared for a global business environment.

Gen Z is also diverse. My 15-year-old next-door neighbor is a quarter Hispanic, a quarter African-American, a quarter Taiwanese, and a quarter white. That's Gen Z - they are often a mix of ethnicities.

Doug Anderson, managing partner of the Washington-based education company Bisnow Ventures, organized the Gen Z conference. He is trying to create a movement around Gen Z with the goal of harnessing the excitement high-school-age Americans have about their careers and helping them explore their options.

At the conference, a few hundred teenagers gathered to take that first step. The mood was electric.

Among those who attended was Sejal Makheja, 16, a sophomore who lives in McLean, Va. When she was 14, Sejal founded the Elevator Project, an organization that aims to lift people out of poverty through apprenticeship, vocational training and job placement. She said she went to the Gen Z Conference because she wanted to cultivate the skills she'll need to take the Elevator Project to a national scale.

"The young people at the conference want to take an active role in their communities and their futures," she said. "It's an upbeat group that's full of passion."

Sejal signed up for sessions on finance, investing and networking. She says that her parents did not push her to register for the Gen Z event, nor do they help her with her nonprofit organization. "My parents are supportive, and they've had to drive me around, but generally they're pretty hands-off," she said. Many Gen Zers intend to go to traditional college, but after that, their lives and careers are likely to be anything but traditional.

Even well-known organizations will have to rethink their recruiting practices to attract this group, and now is the time to start. Those who want to take advantage of Gen Z talent in the future need to develop relationships today with teenagers in grades seven through 12. Get into their schools, provide mentorship and education, and put yourself in a position to help shape their career decisions. They are eager to listen.

Filling the talent pipeline has never been so critical now that the United States is facing a skills gap in most industries. Even if you're a small operation, you can still have a Gen Z internship program. These children are so mature and they learn so fast, they might just be ready to take over by the time they're 22.

ALEXANDRA LEVIT is a workplace consultant and the author of "They Don't Teach Corporate in College."

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Preoccupations I recall the exact moment the temperature changed in the workplace. It was 2005, and I was speaking to an audience of 100 young professionals. I was relating my experiences building a career as a Gen Xer (born 1964-79) in a world of traditionalists (born before 1945) and baby boomers (born 1946-63).

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Gen Z, iGen, Memennials: A Lesson Plan on How This Generation Has Been Characterized and Why That Matters

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Gen Z, iGen, Memennials: A Lesson Plan on How This Generation Has Been Characterized and Why That Matters

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There are more of Gen Zers than there are millennials. People born in 2001 are turning 18 next year which will give them the opportunities like voting. Scientists like to generalize generations by using Gen Y, Gen X, and Gen Z.

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The Times recently asked people 22 and younger what their generation should be called. The answers did not include Generation Z. Credit... Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

According to an August 2018 report from Bloomberg, Gen Z is set to outnumber millennials within a year:

Gen Z will comprise 32 percent of the global population of 7.7 billion in 2019, nudging ahead of millennials, who will account for a 31.5 percent share, based on Bloomberg analysis of United Nations data, and using 2000/2001 as the generational split.

People born in 2001 will turn 18 next year, meaning many will enter university, be eligible to vote and, depending on their citizenship, smoke or drink alcohol without breaking the law. Gen Zers have never known a non-digital world and have grown up amid events such as the "war on terror" and Global Recession.

In this media-literacy lesson plan, we ask teenagers to study themselves. We encourage them to think critically about how their generation has been portrayed by the media and why, and to identify what's missing in that portrayal.

Then, we invite students to participate in our new contest, which challenges them to take photographs that round out adult stereotypes or misconceptions about Gen Z and show us more interesting, nuanced, complete or real aspects of teenage life today.

Teachers can, of course, use this entire sequence as written, or pick and choose the aspects that work best for their students. Whether your students are participating in our contest, which runs through Oct. 15, 2018, or not, we end by inviting students to create something that "talks back" to the media portrayals they will study.

Note: To introduce students to this topic and gather their initial ideas, we suggest using our related Student Opinion question, What do older generations misunderstand about teenagers today? The feature offers questions and two short readings. You can have your students simply read the pieces on their own and answer those questions, or break it up step-by-step as a class activity, the way we suggest below.
Warm-Up
Alone, in pairs or small groups, have students answer the initial questions we pose in our Student Opinion question:

* What stereotypes about teenagers do the adults you know seem to hold? How does the media portray people your age - and what, in your opinion, do they get wrong?

* What do you wish you could explain to adults in general to dispel some of these beliefs?

As students share their answers, begin to compile a class list of ideas, one you'll likely return to throughout this lesson.
Respond to Two Short Readings

Next, our Student Opinion post links to two short recent Times pieces, " Taking Away the Phones Won't Solve Our Teenagers' Problems" and " Are Today's Teenagers Smarter and Better Than We Think?," both of which characterize "Gen Z," but come to different conclusions.

As students read, have them underline or note the generational descriptions they find. Then, invite them to work in pairs or groups to answer the questions we pose, copied below. Finally, have them share their thoughts in a whole-class discussion.

* Which adult descriptions of your generation, if any, seem particularly apt or true, and which seem unfair, incomplete or wrong? Why? In your opinion, do the two articles contradict each other in describing your generation?

* What's missing? What are some things you know or have observed about people your age that you think adults often ignore or misunderstand?

* In general, how much does when you're born shape who you are? How do you think people your age have been affected by the events, technology and culture of the years in which you've grown up? How do you think other generations are different from yours? Why?

* How do you think it is easier to be a teenager today than it was, say, 50 years ago? Harder? In what ways do you think it's the same?

* What do you think about articles like these in general? To what extent do you think it is fair, meaningful, useful or even possible to characterize an entire generation?

* What are the implications of being characterized this way? Why do media portrayals of your generation matter? For example, do you think they affect what products are marketed to you? How your teachers and parents relate to you? How employers now or in the future might think of you? Why or why not?
Wrap-Up
This spring, The Times asked young people what we should call their generation, and thousands answered, suggesting everything from "Generation Scapegoat" to "Memennials." We turned that piece into our own Student Opinion question, and were taken with a thoughtful answer from Mark Mormando, of Wilmington, Del.:

When I read this article, I thought to myself, why does each generation have a name? Why are we all simply perceived as a millennial? Or a baby boomer? Or whatever era we were born in? Why do we have to be given names to define all the people in our generation? I believe that this naming of generations is one of the most fundamentally useless things we can call the developing youth of our country. For example, the current names that are given now are Generation Z, which I have no idea what that even means, Post-Millennials, which is because we were born in 2000 something, and even iGeneration, which doesn't even make sense! I believe that the generation we are from, in retrospect, is truly unimportant to who we are. Why does it matter that I am a member of the iGeneration or whatever? Am I hurting anybody for being born in 2001? These names given to generations are just labels that become associated with work ethic, social status, and other roles in society. It starts off as something convenient, but later on we see someone walking down the street and pretend to know who they are because they are a certain member of a generation. The influence we have on others goes further beyond when we were born, or how long we will live, but what we accomplish in life.

Do your students agree?

To gauge how your students now feel now, post-discussion, you might end your class with a quick Four-Corners exercise in which each corner of your classroom is labeled with one of four signs - Strongly Agree; Agree; Disagree; Strongly Disagree - and students move to them to express their points of view about statements you will read. Here are four possible statements:

* Our generation is significantly different from our parents' generation.

* When you're born deeply shapes who you are and how you see the world.

* Media and adult portrayals of our generation are mostly on target.

* Characterizing generations is a useful and meaningful thing to do.

Background
In 2016, Logan Casey, then a high school junior, wrote a lesson plan for us that looked into some of the questions we posed in the warm-up above.

Called " Minding the Generation Gap: Investigating Media Portrayals of Millennials and 'Gen Z'," it begins:

You may have heard that you are a "millennial." Or that you're a member of "Gen Y." Or even that you're part of "Gen Z." Journalists love to use these terms to make generalizations about generations. For example, a quick search of the Times archives for the word "millennials" alone turns up over 1,500 results.

But no one agrees about what makes each generation unique. For instance, are young people today narcissistic and coddled, or are we creative and energetic?

After supplying the years in which demographers say certain generations begin and end, Mr. Casey goes on:

While people our age share traits, we certainly have differences as well. But journalists and marketers are often happy to defy chronology for the sake of the narrative. For instance, Barack Obama has been called the first Gen X president, although, born in 1961, isn't he a Boomer?

One thing we do know is that people of different ages behave differently, and The Times has reported on, among other things, the way different age groups vote, spend money and time, and express themselves.

He then invites students to look through The Times and other media sources to collect evidence of how various generations are characterized. We suggest your students take a few days or a week to do something similar.
Activity: Collecting Evidence for a Gallery Walk
Invite your students to investigate portrayals of their own generation, collecting articles, photos, illustrations, statistics, graphics, quotes, opinion pieces, videos, social media posts or anything else they might consider evidence from as many media sources as they can.

Remind them to think broadly about sources, choosing newspapers, magazines and sites from across the political spectrum. Remind them to also think about marketing and advertising: How is their generation appealed to, and why? What do the images, language, promises and claims used by the companies that target them say about what adults believe they want and value? And what about social media? They might especially enjoy investigating content like videos and memes that somehow speak to other generations' notions about who they are.

Though you'll be using many kinds of sources, we can suggest a few places in The New York Times to start, beyond the many articles already mentioned in Mr. Casey's lesson and linked to in this lesson.

* Our own Teenagers in The Times monthly series, which rounds up and categorizes all the stories about young people that have appeared in the paper over the previous four weeks.

* A recent collection from the Opinion section headlined Weekend Reads: Those Terrible Teenage Years, from which the two pieces for our Student Opinion question in the Warm-Up were taken.

* To focus specifically on marketing and advertising to this age group, a pair of articles, " Did Juul Lure Teenagers and Get 'Customers for Life'?" and " 'Lit' Is Over, and Other Things You Can Pay Teens to Teach You," a piece about JÜV Consulting, a marketing firm staffed entirely by young people who range in age from 14 to 22, might be read together.

When your students have collected a range of materials, stage a Gallery Walk. As they go around your room, observing what others have contributed, ask them to take notes on these three questions:

* What commonalities do you see?

* What are your reactions to this collection as a whole?

* What questions does this collection raise for you?

After your students have had a chance to go around and view as many of the artifacts as possible, you might have them share findings, then ask:

* What clichés and stereotypes does this collection reveal in terms of how your generation is portrayed? What images and descriptions appear over and over?

* What's missing? What do you think is needed to round out a more nuanced, realistic, interesting or complete picture of teenagers today? Why might a more rounded picture matter?
Going Further (if You Choose): Comparing Generations
If you would like to take this inquiry even further, you might use parts of our lesson plan Bridging the Gap: Considering Factors That Shape Generations.

It begins by having each student work with a handout we call "Back in the Day & Today" that helps them contrast their generation with that of their parents or guardians, and can help them identify differences around everything from values, culture, spirituality and politics to attitudes toward money, entertainment, fashion, and education.

The lesson ends by inviting students to make predictions about how the attitudes and values they have today will shape who they are in 2030 and influence how they will parent their own children.

Activity: Use What You're Learning to Enter our Teen Photo Contest - or to Create Something Else
Now that your students have investigated how adults and the media see them, what can they create that talks back to those portrayals and makes them more nuanced, interesting, real or complete?

Of course, we hope they'll participate in our photo contest, and most of the examples we list in Part IV of this lesson focus on visual images.

But your students might also write essays, film videos, make podcasts, or create infographics, comics or illustrations - all of which could focus on telling a more complex story about their generation.

Regardless of genre, here are some questions they might answer to help get started in finding a subject that interests them.

Questions Students Can Ask Themselves to Help Choose a Subject:

* What teenage communities are you a part of? Which one interests you most for this project?

* What are some of the most stressful aspects of your life? Of teenage life in general?

* What are some of the most joyful? When and how do you and your friends have fun?

* What are some aspects of your daily life, or the lives of other teenagers you know, that are so basic and mundane that they almost go unnoticed?

* What is special in your life? Is there a special daily, weekly, monthly or annual ritual, occasion, holiday or event that you deeply value?

* What are some details of life in school that you think are invisible to or misunderstood by adults?

* What relationships are most important to you? What is special about those relationships?

* How do you express who you are? What parts of your identity are most important to you, and how do you show that?

* What problems in the world concern you and your friends or classmates? How do you think teenagers see these issues differently than adults?

* What do you think is better about being a member of your generation as opposed to, say, that of your parents? What do you think might be worse?

* The media often portrays Gen Z as having different attitudes from adults toward many aspects of everyday life. You've even been accused of "disrupting" some of them. How do you think you and your generation understand, feel or act differently than other generations in relation to any of these topics - and how might you show that in something you create?

-technology and social media

-dating and romance

-gender and sexuality

-money and work

-school and learning

-politics, civics and your role in society

-religion and spirituality

-relationships with family and friends

-body image, nutrition, food and exercise

-mental and physical health

-entertainment and the arts, including music, video games, movies, TV and books

* What do you think adults and the media most need to know about people your age? Why?
Creating, Sharing and Reflecting
Whether your students are participating in our contest or not, the next step is to have them create their pieces, in or outside of class. You might then set aside class time to have students workshop their initial drafts with others creating in the same genre so that they receive peer feedback.

When students have finished their pieces, you might publish or display the full collection, whether in a special section of the school newspaper, on a school website, as a display in a public area, or just in your own classroom.

As they observe the collection of their own work, ask them to revisit some of our earlier questions in light of what they've learned: How do their portrayals challenge some media stereotypes or clichés about their generation? What do their pieces add to the portrait? Why might a more complete and real portrayal matter?

If your class is participating in our contest, they can move on to Section IV, below, where we suggest resources specifically related to photography.

Video

Teenage photographers discuss how they use imagery to explore their worlds. Credit Credit... Gareth Smit for The New York Times

Though giving guidance in terms of technical skills is beyond the scope of this lesson, if you are doing this project in a class outside your art department, you might want to consider teaming up with a photography teacher for extra help.

Below are some resources for thinking about the medium of photography, and for using The Times's photojournalism site, Lens, to find wonderful examples of photos by and about teenagers that you might use as mentor texts.
Think Critically About Photography

1. The four-minute video we've embedded above can inspire your students with its messages about the power of photography, and the way three teenage documentarians work.

2. Our weekly What's Going On in This Picture? exercise invites students to look at an intriguing image, stripped of its caption, and ask themselves three questions - questions which seem simple but which teachers say improves visual literacy by asking students to make claims, find evidence, and understand how images communicate.

* What's going on in this picture?

* What do you see that makes you say that?

* What more can you find?

Students might participate in a week or two of the moderated conversation to learn how to look more closely at images and understand what makes them powerful. Or, just look through this collection of 40 of our most interesting.

3. Lens, The Times's home for photojournalism, is a treasure trove of work from around the globe, most with short essays describing the artist and his or her approach. Invite your students to look through the site and choose images that especially inspire them, perhaps asking themselves some of the questions we pose in this handout which accompanies our lesson plan, Critical Lenses: Examining Iconic Photos to See What Makes an Image Great, that helps students explore the Lens site. The video we have embedded above, about teenage documentarians, comes from Lens as well, and might inspire your students.

Or, they might use this handout, Critiquing a Photograph, which accompanied our lesson Just a Moment: Photographing Ordinary Life that helped students learn from Times photos to think about the technical and aesthetic aspects of creating their own strong work.

4. A recent Lens piece headlined " Native American Photographers Unite to Challenge Inaccurate Narratives" might inspire your students to make connections to what is inaccurate or missing in portrayals of their worlds. The article begins:

When Tailyr Irvine was at the Standing Rock prayer camp in North Dakota she noticed that many of the other photographers there - who had come to photograph protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline - were concentrating on people on horseback or those wearing headdresses. While many of the photographers were well meaning, she said, they relied on overly dramatic visual clichés that gave a distorted view of native people like her.

"Our traditions are important to me," she said. "But I'm also authentically Indian when I'm just wearing sweatpants."

Ms. Irvine is a member of the Salish and Kootenai tribes who was born and raised on the Flathead Reservation in northwest Montana. While her family followed native traditions, she rarely saw meaningful stories on Native Americans. The photos she saw were usually based on stereotypes that she calls the four D's - drumming, dancing, drinking and death.

"You have to go beyond these stories," Ms. Irvine, 24, said. "They are not, by themselves, an accurate representation of who we are."

Photos by and About Teenagers Published in The Times

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Gen Z, iGen, Memennials: A Lesson Plan on How This Generation Has Been Characterized and Why That Matters

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According to an August 2018 report from Bloomberg, Gen Z is set to outnumber millennials within a year: Gen Z will comprise 32 percent of the global population of 7.7 billion in 2019, nudging ahead of millennials, who will account for a 31.5 percent share, based on Bloomberg analysis of United Nations data, and using 2000/2001 as the generational split.

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Teenagers posted pictures of themselves using Juuls. Which made companies realize what could happen to them and teenagers. Companies didn't care about teenagers doing this cause it was restricted to teenagers until pictures with teenagers popped up.

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Juul is under federal investigation for marketing its discreet, flash-drive-resembling e-cigarette product to youth. Credit Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times

The e-cigarette company says it never sought teenage users, but the F.D.A. is investigating whether Juul intentionally marketed its devices to youth.

Juul is under federal investigation for marketing its discreet, flash-drive-resembling e-cigarette product to youth. Credit Credit Jason Henry for The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO - The leaders of a small start-up, PAX Labs, gathered at a board meeting in early 2015 to review the marketing strategy for its sleek new electronic cigarette, called Juul. They watched video clips of hip young people, posed flirtatiously holding Juuls. And they talked about the name of the gadget, meant to suggest an object of beauty and to catch on as a verb - as in "to Juul."

While the campaign wasn't targeted specifically at teenagers, a former senior manager said that he and others in the company were well aware it could appeal to them. After Juuls went on sale in June 2015, he said, the company quickly realized that teenagers were, in fact, using them because they posted images of themselves vaping Juuls on social media.

The former manager said the company was careful to make sure the models in its original campaign were at least 21, but it wasn't until late 2016 or January 2017 that the company said it decided the models in all Juul ads should be over age 35 - to be "better aligned" with a mission of focusing on adult smokers. Only in June of this year did the company again change its policy, this time to using only real people who had switched from cigarettes to Juul.

The company recently modified the names of its flavors - using creme instead of crème brûlée and cucumber instead of cool cucumber. Juul said it "heard the criticism" that teenagers might be attracted to the flavors and "responded by simplifying the names and losing the descriptors."

The sales campaigns for Juuls - now hugely popular with teenagers across the nation - are at the heart of a federal investigation into whether the company intentionally marketed its devices to youth. The attorney general of Massachusetts, also investigating the company, contends that Juul has been luring teenagers to try the product and has introduced many to nicotine. Her investigation will examine Juul's efforts to audit its own website and other online retailers that sell its products to see how effective they are at preventing minors from accessing Juul or Juul-compatible products. (Federal law prohibits sales of e-cigarettes to anyone under 18.)

"From our perspective, this is not about getting adults to stop smoking," the Massachusetts attorney general, Maura Healey, said in an interview. "This is about getting kids to start vaping, and make money and have them as customers for life."

And Cult Collective, the marketing company that created the 2015 campaign, "Vaporized," claims on its website that the work "created ridiculous enthusiasm" for the campaign hashtag, part of a larger advertising effort that included music event sponsorships and retail marketing. A spokesman for Cult Collective declined to comment.

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Examples of Juul's advertising from 2015. The company's current marketing is far more sober-looking, with a less colorful, more adult design.

The company, now called Juul Labs, denies that it ever sought to attract teenagers. James Monsees, one of the company's co-founders, said selling Juuls to youth was "antithetical to the company's mission."

The original sales campaign was aimed at persuading adult smokers in their 20s and 30s to try an alternative to cigarettes, but it "failed to gain traction on social media and failed to gain sales" and was abandoned after five months, in the fall of 2015, said a company spokesman, Matt David.

Mr. David said sales didn't take off until 2017, after Juul had improved its sales and distribution expertise, and, by then, had a more sober online marketing campaign.

The former Juul manager, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition that his name not be used, saying he worried about facing the ire of the company, said that within months of Juul's 2015 introduction, it became evident that teenagers were either buying Juuls online or finding others who made the purchases for them. Some people bought more Juul kits on the company's website than they could individually use - sometimes 10 or more devices.

"First, they just knew it was being bought for resale," said the former senior manager, who was briefed on the company's business strategy. "Then, when they saw the social media, in fall and winter of 2015, they suspected it was teens."

The Food and Drug Administration announced it was investigating Juul's marketing efforts in April. Juuls and other e-cigarettes are regulated by the F.D.A. as tobacco products because nicotine derives from tobacco leaves. E-cigarette users inhale far fewer toxins than do smokers of traditional cigarettes. The nicotine inhaled while vaping is less a concern for adults than these toxins, but it remains a serious health issue for teenagers, whose brains are still developing.

The Juul story highlights a central dilemma in public health. Cigarettes remain the leading cause of preventable death in the United States, killing more than 480,000 people a year. But will it be possible to get people who are addicted to cigarettes to switch to e-cigarettes, which are less harmful, without enticing a new generation or non-smokers to try them?

Juul, in a letter responding to the F.D.A.'s demand for documents, said it had converted one million smokers to Juul, but the company data is drawn from self-reported surveys on its website and is unverifiable.
[Here's how schools are dealing with the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes.]
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who heads the F.D.A., declined to comment on the agency's investigation of Juul. But he has long been hopeful that e-cigarettes or other similar devices, properly regulated, will prove a safer alternative to smoking and help people quit the deadly habit. Before becoming F.D.A. commissioner, he served on the board of directors of Kure, a retailer that sells e-cigarette products.

"Two-thirds of adult smokers have stated they want to quit," he said. "They know it's hard, and they've probably tried many times to quit. We must recognize the potential for innovation to lead to less harmful products."
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But Eric Lindblom, a former F.D.A. tobacco official who heads the tobacco control program at Georgetown Law, said Juul's internal concerns about teenage use demonstrate they are in some ways "no different than the cigarette industry."

"They are going to maximize their sales and profits any way they can," he said. "They are going to do that within the law, but they are going to press the gray areas as much as they can."

Over the last three years, Juul has had a meteoric rise. It has become the dominant seller of e-cigarettes, now controlling a remarkable 72 percent of the market, according to Nielsen data. In July, the company completed a round of fund-raising for $1.2 billion, putting it in rarefied air. From a virtual standing-start in 2015, it is now valued by investors at $16 billion.

Across the country, Juuls have become so popular that "Juuling" has indeed become a verb, and officials from several state governments have sent alerts to schools warning them about the problem.

A survey of adolescent drug use last year found that 11 percent of 12th graders, 8.2 percent of 10th graders and 3.5 percent of eighth graders had vaped nicotine in the previous 30 days.

Juul's other co-founder, Adam Bowen, said that he was aware early on of the risks e-cigarettes posed to teenagers, and that the company had tried to make the gadgets "as adult-oriented as possible," purposely choosing not to use cartoon characters or candy names for its flavors.

The F.D.A. has ordered Juul to turn over the company's research and marketing documents, including focus group data and toxicology reports, to determine whether it intentionally courted the youth market.

The day after receiving the F.D.A. letter, Juul announced it would spend $30 million to combat underage vaping and recruited Tom Miller, the attorney general of Iowa, who helped lead the multistate 1998 master settlement with tobacco companies, to run an advisory board to counsel Juul on its efforts. Mr. Miller said recommendations might include more controls on social media marketing and better surveillance of retail outlets, but the ultimate decision on how to spend the money remains with Juul.

Mr. Miller says he sees huge potential in e-cigarettes. He believes Juul and other e-cigarette companies have already helped lower the adult smoking rate to 13.9 percent in 2017 from 16.8 percent in 2014. "The only plausible explanation is e-cigarettes," he said.

A report from Citigroup, citing Nielsen data, said that sales of traditional cigarettes dropped 6 percent in the first quarter of this year and "it's impossible to say what has caused the change for sure but the most obvious case is Juul."

Juul recently deleted months of social media posts, including ones with images of cool-looking young people vaping Juuls. This spring it made major changes to its website, which had prominently displayed a Juul surrounded by luscious-looking images of fruit and the words "Mango, it's back." The site is now a more sober-looking affair, featuring video of adults vaping with a tagline "For smokers. By design." Across the top of the page, visitors are invited to "learn about our youth prevention efforts."

Mr. Bowen, 42, and Mr. Monsees, 38, the company's founders, met in 2003 in a graduate product-design program at Stanford University, bonding over brainstorming sessions and cigarettes. Both had been smokers since their teens, and both have since quit; Mr. Monsees regularly uses a Juul.

The culmination of the program was a masters thesis, and both had struggled to find a worthy subject. In 2004, about six months before the thesis was due, they got to talking about their smoking habits and, within days, were excitedly sending emails back and forth about developing an alternative to cigarettes.

Big tobacco companies were experimenting with e-cigarettes, but there was no real market for them until around 2010, when NJoy, an Arizona company, became the industry's first darling. By 2013, e-cigarettes were a $1.7-billion-a-year business, still only a small fraction of the $90 billion cigarette business.

But then NJoy gambled on an e-cigarette that looked virtually identical to a cigarette. It was a mistake, said Craig Weiss, the chief executive who pushed the so-called cigalike strategy and now consults for Juul. As NJoy's fortuned flagged, he said he realized that people didn't want a product that looked so much like a cigarette that it still left them with the stigma of being a smoker. NJoy filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016, later re-emerging.

Juul initially developed a product in 2010 that looked like a fountain pen and distributed it in specialty vape shops. Its sales grew to a modest $30 million by 2015.

Then the company found its current design, a sleek stick that looks like a flash drive, and largely stumbled onto a new way of delivering nicotine: it mixes nicotine with a chemical called benzoic acid. The result is that when Juul users inhale, they get a very quick and powerful burst of nicotine. This gives smokers a more cigarette-like experience, but medical researchers say it also makes the product more addictive for youth.

The company launched its new product in June 2015, with starter kits costing $35, and packs of four nicotine refill cartridges selling for $16 - each roughly the equivalent of the cost of a pack of cigarettes. According to Nielsen, sales in the first month were roughly $1,500 and reached over $1 million that December. It began a steady climb, and then experienced explosive growth in the beginning of 2017, with sales rising 627 percent in the four weeks ending June 17, 2017, according to Nielsen and Wells Fargo Securities.

The company said that toward the end of 2016 and around the beginning of 2017, it changed its social marketing campaign and guidelines to require all models to be over the age of 35.

In the last two months, Juul has removed the flavor focus and now uses only "real people" who have used Juul to switch from smoking cigarettes, the company said.

Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, said that he was prepared to be a fan of a product like Juul if it is responsibly marketed and shown to help adults quit smoking. But he cited a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that in 2017 2.1 million high schoolers and middle schoolers used e-cigarettes - "and the reports about high school students using Juul are rampant," he said.

Mr. Myers observed that Juul "delivers nicotine so much better than any comparable product on the market," and so its popularity means that "both the hopes of the e-cig fans, and fears of those concerned about e-cigs and kids, rise exponentially."

On Jan. 23, The Boulder Daily Camera published a front-page story about the growing concerns of local educators in Colorado about student use of Juuls.

Five days later, Carrie Yantzer, the principal at Nederland Middle-Senior High School, received an email that immediately struck her as suspicious. The writer introduced himself as Bruce Harter, a former educator working with Juul to develop an anti-vaping curriculum for schools.

[Here's why public health experts believe vaping may lure teenagers into smoking.]
"I read about the challenges you're having with Juul," Mr. Harter wrote. He offered a free, three-hour curriculum provided by Juul to discourage teens from using e-cigarettes by teaching them about their brains and giving them mindfulness exercises.

"What we've found from focus groups with teenage Juul users is that young people don't understand the dangers of nicotine addiction," the letter read. "They sometimes feel 'pushed' by friends to use e-cigarettes. We also found that they don't have operative ways to deal with stress and the emotional ups and downs of their lives right now."

Ms. Yantzer was angry. "It sounded preposterous," she said, and the company "deceptive."

She wasn't the only school administrator to get such a letter. The Boulder school district and, ultimately, the state of Colorado condemned the offer as a brand-building exercise that was tone-deaf at the very least.

"The way we see this is a fox guarding the henhouse," said Alison Reidmohr, tobacco communications specialist for the Colorado Department of Public Health. "A company that stands to profit from, and currently profit off, youth using a product can't be trusted to prevent use of this product."

Ashley Gould, Juul's chief administrative officer, said the company, because it has not built management around former tobacco-industry employees, was unaware the tactic had been used by cigarette companies. However, Juul's board of directors includes experienced investors, including Nicholas Pritzker, a billionaire whose family controlled one of the country's largest chewing tobacco companies, Conwood, which was acquired in 2006 by Reynolds American for $3.5 billion.

For its part, Juul said it was still deciding what to do with that school program. Ms. Gould said the company did not realize the curriculum would offend or that the idea harked to a tactic big tobacco companies used decades ago. "We didn't know," she said. "We should've known."

Juul has a new innovation in the works, a Bluetooth-enabled version of its e-cigarette that it hopes could push more smokers to switch without risking youth uptake. Mr. Monsees called it a "smart" e-cigarette.

The Bluetooth-equipped Juul might provide a way for adult vapers to measure their nicotine use. It also might discourage teen use by disabling the device unless it's in the presence of its adult buyer, perhaps by linking it to the buyer's cellphone. The solution would still require effective controls on sales to minors at brick-and-mortar stores and online retail outlets.

Juul officials contend their ability to offer such innovations is hamstrung by regulatory policies. The company is building a high-powered operation in Washington to help it navigate such issues. It's run by Tevi Troy, a political strategist who worked with Dr. Gottlieb, the F.D.A. commissioner, at the Department of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush and who wrote an opinion article with him for The Wall Street Journal.

The company has also hired Jim Esquea, who was an assistant secretary at the health department during the Obama administration, and Gerald Masoudi, a former F.D.A. chief counsel.

The company is also ratcheting up its lobbying efforts. It has reported spending $450,000 on lobbying so far in 2018 - substantially more than the $120,000 reported spent for all of 2017. It also recently started a political action committee, although no donations have yet been reported. In June, Kevin Burns, Juul's chief executive, gave $50,000 to the Republican congressional leadership fund.

The centerpiece of Dr. Gottlieb's tobacco control strategy is a plan that would potentially greatly benefit e-cigarette companies, including Juul. It would require tobacco companies to reduce nicotine levels in traditional cigarettes so much that they were no longer addictive. The proposal is still in the early discussion phase, with the tobacco industry strongly opposed. But it would potentially make Juul, a potent nicotine delivery device, far more appealing to smokers.

Mr. Monsees, a Juul co-founder, says he believes that e-cigarettes are a key to reducing smoking, and can be profitable without sales to teenagers.

"Yes, I want to make money," he said. "I'm on the board with a fiduciary duty that obligates me to make money."

But he added, "The best investor return in the long term comes from more adults turning away from combustible cigarettes."

Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks contributed reporting from Washington.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Investigators Ask if Vaping Ads Tried to Hook Teenagers for Life. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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This is the seventh story of an eight-part series on the generation Z population in Canada - who they are, what drives them and how they envision their near future.
Generation Z has grown up in a digital world, with smartphones, high-speed internet, social media and pop culture at their fingertips.

Gone are the days when a family would gather around the television to watch prime-time TV. Today, people watch their favourite show on their smartphones or digital devices when they want to, thanks to subscription services like Netflix and mobile apps to television stations like Global Go.

In this day and age of quick communications, the word celebrity has been redefined for generation Z, too. To them, celebrity simply means "being known" among a group of people and having a certain opinion that others look up to.
WATCH: Generation Z, pop culture and beyond
Social media has changed the concept of celebrity by allowing users to interact with their favourite stars in real time. Lives of the rich and the famous are no longer mysterious because what used to feel like an untouchable figure is now accessible through a number of different platforms, from a direct message on Instagram to a retweet on Twitter.

"I couldn't tell you what gives someone celebrity status these days because if anyone gets a million views on YouTube, then people consider them a celebrity," says Zac Pinto Lobo, 20. "If anyone gets a million follows on Instagram, then they automatically turn their Instagram into a business. I'd say a celebrity is someone who is making something for a wide audience and that audience is accepting them as a celebrity."

That's the world generation Z has grown up in, and they're changing the way the world consumes pop culture.

Generation Z makes up roughly 17.6 per cent of Canada's total population, according to 2017 data from Statistics Canada. Although there is no established start or end date, experts say gen Z-ers are born between 1995 and 2005, making the youngest 13 and the oldest 23. Some argue the generation ends at ages 22 (1996) or 24 (1994). This is still a growing population, one that may not have had traditional life experiences - jobs, mortgages, and so forth - thrown at them. They are still optimistic about what their future holds, and they truly believe they can change it.

How is pop culture consumed?

Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Toronto, tells Global News that these days, teens are consuming pop culture through social media on their smartphones.

"Platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube are at the forefront of this new era of pop cultural consumption," Lee says. "Instead of learning about the newest music, trends, and styles on television, people are finding out about these things through their smartphones, on the go."

The gen-Zers Global News spoke to agree with Lee.

"For me and the people I know, 100 per cent of pop culture is consumed through laptops with Netflix, Twitter, Instagram, and people shop on Instagram now," says Pinto Lobo. "It's not a bad thing. It's just a way more connected way for people to consume pop culture."
READ MORE: Generation Z isn't interested in dating or sex - or so we thought
A lot of gen Z-ers use YouTube as a way to stay informed with news, watch their favourite vlogs and much more.

According to a research report by Google and Ipsos, more time is being spent by all age groups watching online video on their phones than any other smartphone activity, but teens watch the most. Seven in 10 teens say they spend more than three hours per day watching mobile video.

"I'm normally just watching the news and some shows on YouTube, like animation videos. But I also watch a lot about politics on there, too," says Tyson May, 13.

But for all of the change that gen Z has brought, what they're watching may surprise you.

Take The Ace Family, for example.

"If I'm bored, I'll just go on YouTube and search up anything. I watch this YouTube family called, 'The Ace Family.' They're really funny and they always keep me entertained," says 13-year-old student Alexis Asare-Moore.

The Ace Family is currently one of the most popular channels on YouTube, with more than 8.5 million YouTube subscribers. The Ace Family is comprised of 26-year-old ex-basketball pro, Austin McBroom, his 27-year-old fiancé, Catherine Paiz, and their two-year-old daughter, Elle Lively.

The Ace Family posts family-friendly daily content, including, pranks, challenges, behind-the-scenes of events, and vlogs about their daily adventures.

What differentiates The Ace Family from other YouTuber's is their dedication, consistency, positive personalities, and their creative content. They are also one of the first YouTube vloggers to treat their fans like family, referring to them as "Ace Family Members."

What makes someone a celebrity?

Generation Z has a different idea of what a celebrity is than most other generations. Many gen Z-ers reveal that the number of followers someone has on social media helps determine if they are a celebrity - or not.

According to a study by Google, 70 per cent of teen YouTube subscribers see their favourite YouTube influencers as more relatable than traditional celebrities.

Lee says that this new method of consuming pop culture is also changing our notions of celebrity.

"This is fascinating to watch as a sociologist of culture since in some ways social media is democratizing the sphere of media influence," Lee explains. While celebrities from multi-million dollar films are still garnering a massive social media following, so too are people like Lil Tay - who has made a name for herself being the self-appointed 'Youngest Flexer of the Century.'"

In February, a nine-year-old girl named Lil Tay became a viral sensation by posting videos of herself counting money and jumping into luxury cars. Referring to herself as "the youngest flexer of the century," Lil Tay quickly garnered a fan base of millions, including big name YouTubers who saw an opportunity to capitalize on her wild persona.

"You already know what it is, Lil Tay just copped a brand new Bentley truck," she exclaims in one of her videos that has over two million views on Instagram. "See my outfit? Everything I wear be designer. See my chain? This chain cost more than your rent!"
WATCH BELOW: 'Lil Tay's' mom resigns as a realtor
Sumiko Wilson, 20, says that she has "very high standards for a celebrity."

"If you have a big following, now that's considered being a celebrity," said Wilson. "I'd say a million plus followers is the marker of celebrity. But then again, it could also just be being recognizable because sometimes people with 10,000 followers are extremely recognizable in their communities."

Catherine Champion, 14, says a celebrity is somebody, "who can stand out and create a positive change." She cites Ellen DeGeneres as someone she considers a celebrity. Champion also mentioned Canadian YouTube star Lilly Singh.

Some gen Z-ers think it should be less about followers and more about "who is making a change"

"A celebrity is a person who has an actual impact. And I think that's what my generation is about. We're the generation of impact and I think that's why we're sometimes phrased as 'generation we' instead of generation Z," says Harjaap Makkar, 21. "We want to know, 'Who is making a change? Who is making an impact?'"

Makkar says one of his favourite celebrities is Jagmeet Singh, leader of the New Democratic Party.
READ MORE: Generation Z - Online, connected and set on fixing the world
Makkar continues: "Interacting with him and seeing him at events, that gets me much more excited than meeting some Instagrammer or YouTuber."

Jayden Dhari considers celebrities to be athletes and "Drake."

"I look up to those guys. Drake is big for Toronto, he's famous," says Dhari, 16. "And he brought the city into his songs. He's involved the city in what he's doing and I look up to that because he's from here and he's not afraid to show where he's from. For the basketball players, all the guys that play for the Toronto Raptors aren't afraid to go out there and be the only Canadian team in the NBA."

Alice Cheng, 17, thinks celebrities' large following should have a reasoning behind it.

"I think two of my biggest role models are Yara Shahidi, fellow gen Z'er, and Emma Watson," she says. "They both are incredibly creative people and very outspoken on social media. They stand for a good cause and they seem very genuine and unapologetically themselves in this very saturated content age, which I think is rare. I think a celebrity is someone who is admired by many but for good reason."
READ MORE: Generation Z and the (achievable) dream jobs they want
What is Gen Z watching and listening to?

A lot of generation Z's consumption practices involve streaming music (preferably Drake) and watching Netflix, with many citing 13 Reasons Why.
WATCH BELOW: Who is Canada's connected and optimistic generation?
Pinto Lobo says that he thinks the "whole '80s style is coming back" in regards to what people want to watch.

"I think nowadays people are watching a lot of nostalgic shows, like Stranger Things. That's shot all old school fashion which they never got when they were growing up," said Pinto Lobo. "I'm also listening to stuff that's very nostalgic, very '90s R&B style. I don't think anyone is looking for modern because they think modern is very scary so they look to the past. I know that my generation is very in love with nostalgia and '80s, '60s vibes."

Dhari says he listens to a lot of rap music like Drake and Lil Pump.

Cheng has a different answer than the rest of the group.

"When it comes to content consumption, I try to be very mindful because some negative experiences in my childhood, where I would have struggles with mental health," explains Cheng. "I would spend copious amounts of time in front of the television and computer and it wasn't doing any good. I've cut my cable and changed my internet since then."

What does Generation Z consider as 'old'?

Cheng, 17, says she considers the 1980s and before to be "dated," adding, "It's a contract between the golden age because everything was very jubilant."

Cheng's favourite movie is The Graduate (1967). "It's so reflective of the situation I and many of my peers are in now. We've been trained to grow up in this system and everything has been force-fed to us, but now we're discovering this whole new world and we're not sure what to make of it."

Makkar thinks Friends (1994-2004) "is an all-time classic when it comes to TV shows," while Wilson says she considers 2003 and before as "retro."

"Old Disney channel shows like That's So Raven (2003-2007), Lizzie McGuire (2001-2004) or The Proud Family (2001-2005) would all be considered retro. I'm actually watching A Different World (1987-1993) again and that's from the late '80s, early '90s so that's like a real archive," says Wilson.

Champion says she thinks a classic old movie would be Titanic (1997) or The Notebook (2004). Derek Mayen, 17, says he used to enjoy Matilda (1996) as a kid.

What does this mean for the future of pop culture?

Lee believes that this all points to a number of changes that we'll witness in the next handful of years.

"One, the emergence of Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other streaming services will likely mean that more films and TV shows will go straight to streaming - since these platforms are rapidly replacing TV as the preferred platform for young people looking to watch shows and movies."

Lee also tells Global News that this also likely means that trendsetters will look to launch their brands on social media and that social media "following" will become a new metric for measuring the upshot of a person's pop cultural impact.

"This is all very exciting, as we're living through a period of upheaval and change, one that will reshape the celebrity landscape."
This week, Global News will take a look at the many ways gen Z functions, from their views on mental health and the job market to how they take part in pop culture. As you'll see, this is still a largely untapped generation. Follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #GenZed. - Illustrations by Laura Whelan Follow @KatieScottNews
© 2018 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Generation Z and the rise of digital influencers as celebrities

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This is the seventh story of an eight-part series on the generation Z population in Canada - who they are, what drives them and how they envision their near future. Generation Z has grown up in a digital world, with smartphones, high-speed internet, social media and pop culture at their fingertips.

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Millennials vs Generation Z: WHO IS BETTER?

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Millennials vs Generation Z: WHO IS BETTER?

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Gen Z is the loneliest generation, and it's not just because of social media

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Gen Z is the loneliest generation, and it's not just because of social media

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CLOSE

The loneliness of Generation Z reflects not just rising social media use but a broader decline in interactions with neighbors, co-workers and church friends.

At a time when we're supposedly more connected than ever, there are an awful lot of lonely people.

"Nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feeling alone or left out," according to a new survey from health company Cigna. One out of five Americans has no person they can talk to.

And the loneliest generation? That would be Generation Z, defined in this survey as those 18 to 22. Their average loneliness score is nearly 10 points higher than the least lonely generation - the Greatest Generation, those 72 and older.

While it's tempting to blame Gen Z's reliance on smartphones and social media, the data don't bear that out: The survey didn't find a significant difference in loneliness levels between those who used social media often or infrequently.

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Given the worrying consequences, the loneliness of Gen Z - and other generations - should be taken seriously. In fact, Cigna, citing a 2010 Brigham Young University study, says "loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, making it even more dangerous than obesity."

One initiative to encourage Gen Z should be #WalkUpNotOut, a movement that urged high school students to reach out to students perceived as socially isolated after the tragic high school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Regardless of your position on gun control, it can only help to have students focus on being kind and welcoming to each other, particularly when the pervasiveness of social media has made it increasingly easy to bully both on and off campuses.

Plus, this encourages face-to-face interaction - and the Cigna survey found a huge difference in average loneliness scores between those who had daily meaningful in-person encounters and those who didn't. (Astonishingly, one of five Americans surveyed reported having such encounters less frequently than once a week.)

It's also important for Gen Z - and other Americans - to take "social capital" seriously. Thanks to the erosion of neighborhood communities, the fracturing of many families and the decline in church attendance, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for finding new friends or developing meaningful relationships. And that puts even more pressure on students. Imagine being unhappy at school and having no other community to turn to.

According to a 2017 report prepared for Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, several factors show the decline in our interaction with each other:

► Monthly church attendance fell from the early 1970s to the present, with 50% to 57% attending in the past compared with 42% to 44% now.

► In 1974, a third of Americans spent time socially with their neighbors several times a week. Now, only 19% do.

► We're also spending less time schmoozing with our co-workers, going from an average of 2.5 hours a week in the mid 1970s to just under an hour in 2012.

► Families are also becoming smaller, and the percentage of children raised by a single parent or no parent has doubled, from 15% to 31%.

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Given these declining numbers, it makes sense that more Americans are falling through the cracks, losing ways to get to know other people.

And if Gen Z is using phones instead of in-person interactions, that could be contributing to these young adults' loneliness. In an Atlantic article last year, psychology professor Jean Twenge highlighted how teens were less interested in driving and getting out of the house than past generations.

Describing one unnamed 13-year-old, Twenge wrote: "She spent much of her summer keeping up with friends, but nearly all of it was over text or Snapchat. 'I've been on my phone more than I've been with actual people,' she said. 'My bed has, like, an imprint of my body.' "

That's not healthy - and if these are the habits Gen Z is developing in these crucial years, it doesn't bode well for this generation becoming less lonely in the future.

The American writer Flannery O'Connor, a Catholic, was fond of a prayer that included these lines, "Raphael, lead us toward those we are waiting for, those who are waiting for us: Raphael, Angel of happy meeting, lead us by the hand toward those we are looking for."

You don't need to be religious to realize that we both need - and are needed by - others, and that our own lives grow in meaning through many of our interactions with others.

It's easy to toss out opinions on Facebook or on bumper stickers, but at the end of the day, one of the most powerful things many of us may do to change the world could be our "hello" to someone, our reaching out to that person who seems in danger of being on the fringe, making eye contact and sharing a smile with a homeless person even if we don't have change. Let's look up from our phones a little more often - and start acknowledging the people right in front of us.

Katrina Trinko, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is managing editor for The Daily Signal. Her views do not necessarily represent The Heritage Foundation, her employer. Follow her on Twitter: @KatrinaTrinko

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Gen Z is the loneliest generation, and it's not just because of social media

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CLOSE The loneliness of Generation Z reflects not just rising social media use but a broader decline in interactions with neighbors, co-workers and church friends. At a time when we're supposedly more connected than ever, there are an awful lot of lonely people.

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Report: We Have Gen Z All Wrong And Here’s Why

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Report: We Have Gen Z All Wrong And Here’s Why

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Think you know Gen Z? Think again.

A new cultural insights report by research group Box1824 sheds light on the unique characteristics and values of Gen Z-ers (AKA people born 1995-2014) that set them apart from previous generations. Its findings provide important takeaways for brands looking to craft post-millennial marketing strategies.

The report's big finding: Society at-large, and especially marketers and members of the media, have a lot of misguided perceptions with respect to this group's identity and the way they live out their lives. Contrary to acting like "millennials on steroids," which is a commonly-held assumption, Gen Z-ers should be treated as their own distinct cohort. Box1824 theorizes that this bias has been fueled by a "hypervisible demographic of micro-celebrities and digital influencers."

In the report, the researchers redefine Gen Z as "GenExit," since this generation's underlying mindset is that there's always an exit door. One of the most surprising findings was that members of this group are turned off by the pressures to sell themselves (and their personal brands) via social media. Rather than being attracted to a world that's consumed by views, likes, shares, comments, and subscribers, Gen Z or GenExit prefer to create more "fluid identities."

Along these lines, they opt for much more personal digital personalities with engagement centered around themes of "imagination, creativity, and intimate connections" as opposed to commercialism and power. The report also finds that the platform of choice for GenExit, the one that most closely aligns with their values, is Snapchat, as it's considered to be the most intimate and ephemeral.

"In the same way that Millennials transformed cable into prestige TV, GenExit will remake social media in their own image," predicts Box1824. How? By being relatable, and pragmatic.

Two additional characteristics of GenExit to note include their skepticism and tepid feelings on commitment. This not only applies to their hobbies and behavior when engaging in social media but to their political and religious views and their approach to careers and education as well.

A growing number of Gen Z-ers are cutting ties with such establishments in favor of third-party affiliations-something the report calls a "crisis of institutions." This is an especially important attribute for marketers at large, heritage brands to note. Post-millennial consumers are natural skeptics and will require new avenues for building trust. This finding also seems to open up new opportunities for challenger brands to make a mark within established industries, a trend we've already seen take hold with millennial consumers.

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Report: We Have Gen Z All Wrong And Here's Why

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Think you know Gen Z? Think again. A new cultural insights report by research group Box1824 sheds light on the unique characteristics and values of Gen Z-ers (AKA people born 1995-2014) that set them apart from previous generations. Its findings provide important takeaways for brands looking to craft post-millennial marketing strategies.