Gen Z unmasked: Young people and Covid-19

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Covid-19 had a tremendous impact on Generation Z. Teenage life changed from light-hearted – full of discovery, experimentation, freedom, sharing and the outdoors – to fear, lockdown, not going out, control, responsibilities, and missing out on graduations, university, birthdays and live concerts.

To learn more about how teens are feeling and how the past year has shaped their attitudes and behaviour, we applied a ‘networking approach’. We spoke directly to Gen Z through the Consumer Consulting Square – a closed, online and mobile-enabled community for moderated discussions – in eight European countries. This included about 200 young people aged between 16 and 19 in the UK, Germany, France, Spain, Norway, Poland, Italy and Romania.

We then integrated 40 internal sources – both primary and secondary data – from the insights community worldwide. Despite the timing (March 2020 ), this was not a lockdown study – we discussed their present, but also their future.

Five key themes emerged, of which we will explore three here. The first combines gratitude and attitude. The world suddenly halted, and teens took a break from their non-stop lives by (re)discovering talents, passions, hobbies, and crafts. To give themselves structure and distractions, many actively looked for new daily activities, even including household chores or walking the dog.

The lockdown rolled teens into self-reflection about what their life is like and how meaningful they want it to become; about what would make them happy and what they are grateful for. A 19-year-old from Kuala Lumpur stated: “I used to take my life for granted, but now I’m really grateful I have a comfortable home with Wi-Fi and air con.”

Being stuck at home, their bond with their family became stronger, which partially filled their socialising needs and provided support.

Teens feel overwhelmed and insecure because of Covid-19 news coverage. This is the first real crisis in their lives, which they try to ‘escape’ by bouncing back, sharing creative, positive and funny moments in their daily lives. TikTok proved to be more than a lip-sync/dance-off platform, and shifted towards a carefree and inspiring hangout for many teens.

Post-pandemic, they are likely to focus more on positive social media and fun content, avoiding trolls, bullying and fake news, as this Romanian quote illustrates: “I try to focus on social networks where there is not so much mayhem about the coronavirus.”

Gen Z still loves brands, but is looking for authentic people with relevant content. Covid-19 created an opportunity for Gen Z to discover new ‘curators of cool’ – not the usual glamorous celebrities – and these influencers are likely to remain relevant.

Teenagers are extremely vocal about brands that endorse their values and passions to right the world’s wrongs, and expect brands to take specific actions. Covid-19 and the economic crisis are forcing them to recognise inequality and disparity, together with their previous environmental concerns, as this French boy says: “For a greater ‘living together’, we need to consider several parameters that complement each other, like the environment, our own health, the local community, and local businesses.”

Gen Z is the generation of ‘click activists’ – they are simply holding strikes online as the influential #PullUpOrShutUp campaign on Instagram illustrated. In its first three weeks, the campaign – calling on beauty brands to go beyond Black Lives Matter PR stunts – attracted more than 124,000 followers and prompted more than 200 companies, such as Estée Lauder and Sephora, to respond.

Covid-19 has challenged many of the structures we had in place: global travel, capitalist progress, relationships, and parenting, for example. Gen Z still feels the urge to change the systems, but, on the other hand, is facing more social pressure, anxiety, stress and loneliness than ever before. With most of them still in their formative years, experiencing coming-of-age moments during their first real crisis, the consequences of the pandemic might have a stronger effect on them than on any other generation.

All those learnings are helping to shape our ongoing conversations with teens and Gen Z around the world.

Joeri Van den Bergh is co-founder, partner and future consumer specialist at InSites Consulting.

Begonia Fafian is knowledge and insights director at Coca-Cola Western Europe.

This article was first published in the April 2021 issue of Impact.