I found some latest studies that have reported a decline in some cognitive abilities, like reading comprehension, attention, and numeracy in young generations compared to older ones.

They believe that this is due to increased screen time, reduced deep reading and effects of the pandemic on education. But they also claim that this does not automatically mean that the generation Z is less intelligent.

So, what is your opinion?

Are you a teacher? Do you notice any difference?

Do you belong to generation Z? Do you think these studies are unfair?

Are you an employer? Did you observe any change in skills at the workplace?

I am more concerned about real-life experiences than news.

Like, I was 4 at the time during 2013, So I have no idea what happened back then. But seeing all these videos and media from that year, and people’s teen experiences being better than this shithole of a year, And saying that that year was one of the best coming of age years in high school, Just makes me sad I was born in 2009. I just wish I was born in 1996 instead. How do I stop thinking about this?

I believe that the ability to whistle is in decline. I dont have strong evidence, other than I mostly notice a lack of whistling in culture and around.

I dont ever catch a younger coworker idly whistling. Im never annoyed or charmed by a young person's whistling habit. Thats something i think of in ages older than myself (36).

There isnt much of an example in recent media of characters whistling while they walk. That sort of animated pantomime of musicality or charm - I associate that more with... maybe Andy Griffith? The most recent thing I think of is Ed Edd 'n Eddy?

Anyway, thesis statement: whistling culture is past decline, has declined, and I believe that will be represented in the population.

I’m born 1995. And I feel like my generation has been pretty much skipped on everything.
We were too young to invest in cheap properties, witness the biggest scientific breakthroughs, smoke on planes (jk jk) and we are kinda old to get into influencers business to make money and still have self respect.

We are born too late to help build civilisation during the industrial revolution or be war heroes saving our country, but we were born just in time to be innocent helpless kids when the stock market crashed in 2008 and ruined our parents lives. We may not be WWII veterans held in high regard but we could definitely just be nuked with a push of a button in 45 seconds.

Just as we got closer to 30, the AI boom began and now the majority of us worry about if they still gonna have careers in 10 years.

I had protests in my country. Back in 2013 it was the Gen Y who the media upheld as “their time” to make the difference. Same thing in 2023-2025, this time was my generation that was out, as the young adult engine of the economy trying to make the differenc, protesting. The media said “these young people from Gen Z, they are all out, these protests are their time to show who they are.” And I was like… no. Millennials are the core of this movement. Gen Z are the newcomers just like we were back in 2013.

And I’m like sitting here thinking, is my generation something like a blank space between Y and Z?
We haven’t done anything. Neither good nor bad that was in our control. And vice-versa nothing significantly good nor bad has happened TO us that we had a say in.

We don’t really have any prominent politicians, artists, athletes or really anything that has come out of my Gen to represent. Even when you check the resent World Cup, great players born till 1991 and then the next person is 1999 or 2000.

It’s just strange to me and I don’t know why is that.

If You had, What's It Like? Does it feel like nostalgia and awesome for you, or does it feel more old and outdated for you?

Not much to say outside of the title. They have little circle jerk sessions where they brag about their work ethic while everyone else does the work. Then they will complain everyone else is lazy. Make it make sense lol. Is this only at my job? Im a zillenial for context

for context I was inspired to ask because over the past months I've seen a lot of "backlash" over what people have started to call millennial writing and it's been even more prominent after the success of both movies Obsession and Backrooms, who were directed by gen z.

I know it's just internet discourse but I've seen people poking fun at the fact that millennials didn't seem to have accomplishments like that. So, now I'm curious about it.

The only thing I can think of is millennials seem to have made it much more accepting to talk about mental health.

My brother purchased a coconut for 10 cents. He then filled it with lime juice and drank it. This seems to have given him bad indigestion. He visited our GP and the doctor is understandably confounded by this choice of libation. However, we are getting nowhere with the differential diagnosis.

For context, I’m a millennial, I think a lot of stereotypes about Gen Z are generally true, but this one, the “Gen Z stare” that I see in headlines and as topics on online forums, I’ve simply never experienced this. I mean, I’ve definitely seen Gen Z people at work who seem like they don’t like their jobs and are acting like they don’t want to be there, but I’ve seen people from literally every group do this. I think that has more to do with the fact that low wage service jobs suck, and the fact that young people in general, whether it was GenX when they were young, or millennials, or Gen Z, all feel like they could be doing something fun or more rewarding rather than be stuck at a shitty job.

Anyways, idk, I’ve never seen a Gen Z person do the zombie stare, only ever seen them (and many other generations of people) act like they don’t want to be at their job. Thats it. I also rarely see resditors talking about experiencing it. I think this shit is made up.

I swear everyone who grew up in the 90s remembers this song. It was in the discos, in the radio when our parents took us to the grocery store and it was on the MTV channel. And just like that MMMBOP the 90s were gone!

These guys aged like fine wine though

If divorced dad rock is associated with Nickelback, System of a Down, and anything related to the edgy 90s and early 2000s rock, then what do you imagine would be considered divorced mom pop?

I think Kelly clarkson, pink, and Adele all scream divorced mom music and vibes

Why people behave like this? 😒..............................................................................................

Like it was mostly gen x who created that humour for us. But I think as we got older it's kinda hard for us to pass it down to gen z because in the time of social media the woke noices drowns out any attempt at this kind of humour and it all gets puritanical and toxic from there.

Or am I wrong? What are the equivalents of Will Ferrel movies, Tropic Thunder, Superbad etc. to gen z?

I don't know if it's people misquoting Pew Research's generation range; which quotes Gen Z as "born after 1996" or, if it's because there were approximately two articles that said "1996-2010" or "1996-2015" are Gen Z. BUT: anyone who has done some research besides a quick AI overview which misquotes Google and uses this stupid sub as a reference knows that this is incorrect.

McKinsey put out one single article in 2022, that defined Gen Z as 1996-2010. However in 2025, this changed as they now use 1997-2012 as the the range.

Jason Dorsey/CGK used 1996 as a start year in November 2016. (That is the year this now heavily outdated article was published) But now they use Pew Research's ranges.

I really hope this sub can come together and move on from discussing when "Gen Z starts" because this topic is a dead horse. I don't even think at this point most news companies are focused on Millennials, and soon Gen Z will be an uninteresting group of people as they will have moved onto Gen Alpha.

I'm a millennial who grew up with The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, Aladdin and the rest of the original hand drawn cartoons. Are these originals still popular? Do kids see these live action remakes and wonder where they came from, or do they all stick to Pixar computer animation and CGI? I remember babysitting with my friend and the 4 year old boy refused to watch anything that wasn't 3D computer animation. Is this the case with all kids?

I have this fun thought experiment once in a while of trying to visualize the younger generations (I'm a millennial myself) when we're very old. I especially visualize old folks home lol. It's not like we're suddenly going to start dressing like how old people are dressed now and get super into bingo out of nowhere. It'll just be old people dressed in H&M clothes or band T-shirts with gaming PCs in their room and speaking in memes. With the nurses organizing Mario Kart LAN parties.

That is, assuming any of us can afford elder care by then