After chatting to a few gen z, if I was to assume a characteristic of this generation, it’s that most seem to have completely given up, or not even started, the fight against the deterioration of online privacy, exposure to ads, and companies “rights” and/or ability to harvest personal data from them no matter what they want. It’s just part of life to them.
It’s just accepted, and whenever I’ve raised the issue with them, they’ll generally just reply with defeatist/pessimist/‘pragmatic’: “well, the alternative X, y and z apps/websites you’ve suggested likely all have hardware backdoors forcibly installed anyway”
So I think the willingness to fight, and picture a different way of having things, really is focused on those within millennial and gen-x age bands.
Edit: the point being, gen z therefore appear less likely to move away from existing structures, like Snapchat and Reddit, over increased ad promulgation, personal data harvesting, or bad company behaviour.
Not excusing it, but I’d say it’s very easy to feel disconnected from others when you’re in a privileged position of power.
Everyone else becomes “them”, and you lose track of what “normal” or “average” experiences are like, because you tend to live within a very different space to others, and tend only associate with people with similar privilege levels.
I remember visiting my country’s Parliament building, and within about 15 minutes having this weird sense of disconnection due to the incredibly different beautiful and privileged environment. Everywhere were massive pieces of art, beautiful marble inlays, everything was clean and well ordered, great big wide open spaces, beautifully carved wooden chairs in dining areas etc.
I remember thinking no wonder politicians tend to be labelled disconnected and removed from the concerns of the average citizen. If I was working in that building 8-12 hours a day, 4-6 days a week, 40+ weeks a year, I’d find it hard to remain grounded and to also remind myself that what I was experiencing was something less than 5% of the population might experience, rather than being the “norm” or standard for the majority of the population.