We’re still talking about generations, and that’s missing the big idea behind the Gen Z Effect and this book—that generations are the wrong way to group people. We refer to Gen Z as the last generation because our six forces—
population distribution, shifting influence, universal education, hyperconnectivity, slingshotting, and lifehacking—are blurring and contorting shared experience and the lines between generations so dramatically that it will soon be impossible to differentiate between generations in any useful way.
Cohorts will still exist but what they will share is not a common age but rather a common set of behaviors and experiences. If you want to see this today, look at gaming (something we talk much more about in chapter 6). Gamers come in all shapes, sizes, ages, and ethnicities. There is no human demographic that gaming does not traverse. It’s the same way with Gen Z, which cuts across all cultural divides.
Mind you, the developmental stages of youth and the cultural experiences we share by age won’t be a thing of the past. There’s still an experiential difference in stages of life—from needing a pacifier to needing a walker—although we’d claim that the distance between a tablet, the modern-day equivalent of the pacifier, and a computerized walker is far smaller. And, of course, you’ll still
have particular shared experiences with your classmates from high school or university, or with colleagues from your first job.
We’re also not claiming that the growing pains typical from toddlerhood to adolescence will somehow be eliminated by the Gen Z Effect. The hormonal and chemical changes that we, and our parents, went through are the same ones our children will endure. Children will continue to drive their parents crazy because testing limits and challenging authority are inherent parts of discovering and forming an individual identity.
But, as a tool for working together productively, and certainly as a tool for understanding the larger picture of how the world will operate in the twenty-first century, diagnosing and responding to behavioral trends in twenty-year generational bands no longer makes sense. Our claim is that we all have an opportunity—even a responsibility—to adopt the broader zeitgeist of Gen Z.
The bottom line is that the year you were born need no longer be the principle identity of your behaviors and attitudes.
What our research has shown is the emergence of a set of behaviors and attitudes that crosses generations and defines Gen Z. For example, Gen Zers hold the increasingly prevalent belief that Internet access is a basic human right for everyone rather than a privilege for a few. According to Internet.org, two-thirds of the world’s population still does not have access to the Internet, and while penetration of the Internet has reached 2.7 billion people in just a few decades, the annual increase has slowed to just 9 percent globally.
In developed countries where the Internet is widely available and affordable, the impact has been significant in practical economic terms. A McKinsey &
Company study found that over the past five years the Internet has contributed to 15 percent of GDP growth in these countries. The study also uncovered that for every job the Internet eliminates due to new efficiencies, 2.6 new jobs are created. Consider the economic impact to developing countries if we could create affordable Internet access for the world’s remaining five billion inhabitants.
Much of the behavior of Gen Z will grow from this attitude that being connected is foundational to economic growth. For Gen Z this is an obsession that will cross all traditional boundaries, including nationalism, race, and political affiliation. Their gaming and their schooling will happen on a global stage, it will be self-directed, and it will build new forms of global community.
We believe that within the decade we will have an affordable Internet that will allow any human being, without regard to geographic or political location and economic status, to connect with any other human being based on individual interests rather than on the circumstances of his local “tribe.” The result will be
the beginning of an era of global disruption, innovation, and progress unlike anything humankind has experienced.
With all due respect to the vast body of his work, Thomas Friedman was wrong. The world isn’t flat: it’s networked and it’s both infinitely small, in that anyone can connect with anyone at anytime, and infinitely large, in that the possibilities that arise from hyperconnectivity are endless. This is what we call distributed convergence, an ability to be both hyperlocal and hyperglobal at the same time.
Understanding this point is critical to appreciating the power of the Gen Z Effect. In simple terms, we are saying that locality still has meaning, but not in a geographic sense. Locality is defined by your interests rather than your geography or your political borders. Just as adding a third dimension to two dots on a piece of paper allows you to connect the dots by folding the paper rather than traversing a straight line on its surface, hyperconnectivity allows Gen Zers to find whatever and whomever they need to accomplish the task at hand.
While the full impact of the Gen Z Effect may not be felt until 2025 (the latest date by which every last human will have Internet access), we’re already behind in understanding and preparing to work shoulder to shoulder with those who embrace this radical new set of behaviors.
So, let’s begin our journey through the six forces of the Gen Z Effect that are already shaping our world. The first of these is also the most profound in terms of how it will reshape society. Its unlike any other shift that will alter nearly every aspect of how we think and act as individuals, businesses, and governments: it is the imminent and radical change in population distribution from the pyramid to what we call the skyscraper.