Generation Z vs. Generation Y — Pragmatism vs. Optimism
Today my 15 y.o. brother was live on Romanian TV. He spent his 110 minutes talking about the education system in Romania, about politics, about promoting Romania, about corruption, about Romanians’ mentalities, about change, about TEDx, about learning, about the human nature. His stories were not only coherent and logical, but impressively pertinent. His goals are well defined, and every step of the way has been laid out to reach those goals.
I have read a couple of articles defining the differences between the gen Y and gen Z mentality. With a strong influx of and easy access to information, centennials seem to better understand the world we live in, the struggles we are facing or could face. They thus have not only higher levels of maturity, but they are more skeptical, more concerned.
We, millennials, are idealists, dreamers, we believe that anything is be possible. Centennials, on the other hand have a very pragmatic spirit. They know that anything is possible if you follow a specific set of steps. They understand from a very early age the importance of good education, of networking, of properly understanding the system they are part of.
We’ve nurtured their curiosity by showing them that people rarely have one single vocation in their life. Through our struggles, we’ve increased their awareness of today’s challenges.
Generation Z has been flourishing in a tech-centered, innovation driven ecosystem. They’ve learnt how to use these tools to their benefit, smartly. If we’re the ones who have seen fire for the first time, they are the ones who learned how to use it for cooking. They’ve laughed at our ridiculous Facebook statuses about “what we ate yesterday morning”, at endless, pointless tweets; they’ve laughed at our naivety towards social media. Yet, despite all that, they’ve also learnt from us that social media can be a powerful tool for change and mobilization.
When you come from a post-communist era in a post-communist country, the thoughts listed above are even stronger. After any change in the system, a wave of optimism hits, and once that reality is lived and discovered, skepticism and pragmatism develop.
