Gen Zers can be entitled, coddled, anxious self-professed victims. But, for as much as I’ve criticized my generation in columns through the years, I must admit: Sometimes they have a point.
Those born between 1997 and 2012 have experienced one historically seismic disruption after another in their short lives, all at delicate times in their development.
The typical Gen Zer was handed an iPad or iPhone as a tween and had their childhood sucked up by a screen.
Their middle or high school experience was upended by a global pandemic. And now, as they graduate college and head out into the real world, they’re confronted by what might be the biggest challenge of them all: artificial intelligence threatening their livelihoods.
No wonder they’re anxious.
“I don’t mean to be super ‘Woe is me,’ but I definitely think people in my generation have gone through some very difficult life events,” said Kiran Submaranian, a 22-year-old recent Rutgers grad. “And right now, the vibe is generally not very pro-AI, especially for people who are looking for entry-level jobs.”
The very entry-level jobs that help young people get their foot in the door professionally are proving the most susceptible to AI’s impact. Zoomers rightfully feel that the ladder is being pulled up on them.
Across the country, students have been booing speakers at graduation events who speak optimistically about AI, like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who was jeered by University of Arizona students.
The same thing happened earlier this month at the University of Central Florida, where the graduation speaker, entrepreneur Gloria Caulfield, announced during her speech that “the rise of artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution” and was visibly stunned by the sea of boos that poured out from the crowd.
The message is clear: Young people are on edge about AI. A 2026 Gallup survey found that they are considerably more angry about AI and considerably less excited or hopeful about the tech than they were just last year. Recent graduates heading into the workforce are especially anxious.
“You’re doing all these internships, you’re going out, busting your butt trying to qualify yourself,” said Wilson Porcher, a recent graduate of Clemson University. “You’ve literally spent your entire life doing something just for it to be taken away from you, right when you get to that point when you can start using your skills that you’ve been gaining.”
The 22-year-old from South Carolina is taking the summer off before applying for jobs in hopes that he returns to a healthier market. He added, “Some of the kids in my classes were like, ‘Why are we working when AI is just gonna replace us?’”
The class of 2025 sent almost double the number of job applications as the class of 2024, as 40% of employers expect to reduce their workforce due to AI automation. Allanah Toepfer, a 27-year-old from Los Angeles, has witnessed the before and after.
After graduating in 2021, she almost immediately landed a gig in business development. But now, after quitting her job a year and a half ago, she often doesn’t even hear back from new prospective employers. She claims she has applied to 500 jobs so far.
“When I first graduated college and I was job searching, I didn’t really have any real experience relevant to what I was trying to do, but I still was consistently getting interviews,” she said. “Now it’s hard just to get a response. And, when there is a response, it comes in at like two a.m. and seems like it’s automated.”
Sometimes Toepfer can’t even get an interview with a real person. She’s been subjected to AI interviews where she is recorded responding to questions asked by a chatbot.
It’s hard not to feel empathy for young people trying to find their footing in such a revolutionized job market. And it’s not even the first time they’ve had to adapt to radical change.
When they were children, they became the guinea pigs for the impacts of smartphones and tablets — technology that nobody, including their parents, understood the full dangers of.
Now we know, thanks to researchers like social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, that smart technology is correlated with unprecedented levels of anxiety and mental health issues among young people.
And, when the pandemic broke out while Zoomers were still in middle school, high school, and college, they were subjected to semesters-long lockdowns that disrupted their budding social lives and unleashed learning losses so severe, schools to this day still haven’t closed the gap back to pre-pandemic performance.
Their timing seems to be cursed. Zoomers are still so young, and yet they’ve already weathered one seismic, disruptive change to their lives after another. AI is just the latest hurdle that they’ve had to clear.
“Every generation faces a world they didn’t create and have little say in controlling,” Psychologist and generational researcher Jean Twenge told The Post. “It’s true that these types of cultural pressures are ‘done to’ young generations without them having much say in it.”
But she also says it’s up to every generation to decide what they will do with it: “They can choose nihilism and decide nothing they do matters, or choose nihilism’s closely related cousin, complaint without action. Or they can take action — protest, run for political office, change careers.”
They weren’t old enough to speak up when screens were shoved in front of their faces as children, or when their schools forced them into ill-conceived lockdowns.
But perhaps, precisely because they have so much to lose, Gen Z will rise to the occasion and help us build a future that preserves human dignity in an automated world.
