Gen Z's Pressing Issue About Conformity

Gen Z’s Pressing Issue Regarding Conformity

Some of the older generations see Generation Z as the lazy, phone-addicted, technology-dependent upcoming generation, but Gen Z is much more than that. Generation Z consists of people born between 1997 and 2012. They are the future of the working class, and they value flexibility, improvement, and many more beneficial components. Gen Z grew up on the internet and social media and will never know what life would be like without technology. Technology has many benefits such as dramatically increasing efficiency, communications, connections, learning, and many more aspects of life. One of the most common and turn-key technologies includes cell phones, especially smart phones. According to Pew Research

Mass conformity has been around since ancient times, as social conformity was put into place in an attempt for a more unified group. This conformity has grown and morphed as time went on as people changed themselves to follow the set standards. Conformity is immense among teens, as many teenagers try to fit into the social norms surrounding the way they act and look. Nowadays, conformity around Gen Z includes having the newest shoes, clothing, slang, and careless actions. Gen Z has lost much of its uniqueness, as each clique of the generation has certain standards that must be met for its followers to fit in. Conformity itself has enough advantages that it is not the problem, rather the motives, reasoning, and form of communications act as the real problem. Social media, clique groups, and meeting expectations are all major components to the negative side of conformity in Generation

Generation Z has been surrounded by social media their entire lives, and the effects of it have become a permanent part of their life. Social media can create insecurities, changes in self-image, and peer pressure to change themselves to fit into the social standards. Social media does have positive impacts such as connecting, learning, and spreading ideas and opinions in a positive way. However, social media can negatively affect people’s ideas and opinions by forcing conformity and popularity to meet others’ expectations. For example, Instagram is crowded with influencers who make their lives look perfect, which is not realistic. Many of these influencers make their lives look perfect, when they aren’t, setting unhealthy beauty standards and lowering followers' self-worth because their lives aren’t as perfect. The likes and follows play a big part in social media user’s minds because they can think that they aren’t perfect enough or people don’t like them enough to give them likes, creating a huge problem for their self-worth and self-esteem. When people try to follow in the footsteps of these influencers, looking for their perfect lives to find popularity, they will be disappointed, because the perfect lives shown on screen never