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Why is Gen-Z facing a social shift

The time has come for the rebirth of the third place

Digital nativism has come up in many, I would say most, of these columns — as Generation Z reached adolescence and went online right into social media, we also found the communities and friend groups that every growing teen needs.

But in recent years there has been a shift among not just Gen-Z, but Millennials and Gen-X, to go offline again. Whether it’s finding friends and community through work and family — I don’t know a Millennial parent that hasn't glommed onto the parents of their children's friends — or recommitting to the third place, there has been a shift away from the impersonal. Having to plan out every interaction and time to meet pales in comparison to being able to encounter friends in our daily routine: the gym, the coffee shop, volunteering, or tabletop gaming.

I’m not analysing these things, but I am telling you what this is all about; the rebirth of the third place.

To talk about how third places are coming back, we need to talk about where they went in the first place.

In short: we killed them.

More accurately, social media killed them. As we found community online, the internet gave everyone the freedom not just to jack in and let search engine or social media algorithms do the work of finding our friends for us, but also remove all the nuance and growth that comes with making friends the best way.

You need those awkward interactions where you struggle to understand if the other person likes you or finds you annoying, or one of you being the one to embarrass themselves first with an obscure reference or bad joke. All those things lay the foundation for any good relationship overall, and strong friendships doubly so.

I could propose solutions, but Gen-Z is too large and too diverse to do that with any great ease. Instead, I will ask only for a culture shift. If you really are dreading going to that party or after work hang out, ask yourself this — do you not want to go because you're an introvert, or because you have no reason to be extroverted?

The Gen-Z ability to adapt to spaces and circumstance is what we should take from our digital nativism, not that we know how to navigate social media. Let’s extend this strength to our social lives, by literally pulling online friends into in-person friends, or broadening our ties with friends online.

An example from my own life is a good friend of mine invited me to join a weekly activity, but online. I see him in person weekly and know him well, but these friends of his, I would know only in the context of the activity. It was difficult to communicate with them, but the most innocuous information drop — another player’s food allergy, in common with a family member of mine — offered a tiny thread to establish a friendship ‘beyond’ the mutual friend that introduced us.

Language to protect their privacy aside, as a generation we have already established this intellectual, politically manoeuvrable, progressive mindset that has established international solidarity protests over everything from labour issues and climate change to press freedom and genocide.

It’s the kind of generational solidarity, I would argue from Gen-X to Gen-Alpha, that any movement would crave — yet we can’t make friends, establish our own third places, and must suffer through the dating apps?

Just be gregarious, be open to connection, and be yourself. Feels weird to repeat that at 28 years, but here we are.

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