Fixing loneliness fixes all other problems
Despite the stereotype, Gen Z is surprisingly apolitical. Aside from clicking 'like' on a video or tweet, Gen Z remains uninvolved.
There is a widespread belief that Gen Z is the most political generation ever. But most of its political expression is limited to liking certain podcasts or Twitter accounts. When it comes to real world engagement, the loneliness and isolation of Gen Z is startling and without precedent in American history.
There has been study after study after study done regarding Generation Z's disengagement from politics, as well as its "epidemic of loneliness." I'll quote a few articles here:
66% state they are registered to vote, but only 48% of respondents intend to vote in the 2024 general election, significantly lower than the nationwide baseline of 68%. Understanding this group’s political disengagement is a key part of activating Gen Z’s commitment to democracy.
As Gen Zers become a more significant part of the population, they must recognize that political power and civic engagement extend well beyond social media use and voting on Election Day. Gen Z Americans played a powerful role in the outcomes of the past two national elections and voted at high rates, but their turnout was still lower than that of older cohorts... This means that Gen Zers need to become dynamic in their physical communities and create social capital — the glue that binds people and communities together and leads to thriving levels of citizenship. Engaging in one’s community is essential to keeping our republic dynamic and healthy, but far too many Gen Zers seem to be missing this critical lesson.
Also see: “Gen Z Voters Say They Are Opting Out of the 2024 Election”
Also, Generation Z has low levels of civic knowledge, see the charts below.
While podcasts and Twitter and TikTok can inspire strong emotions about particular issues, Gen Z has surprisingly little background knowledge about how the USA political system actually works.
As you can see in the chart, when compared to the national baseline, Gen Z is less likely to vote and less likely to participate in the political process. The one area where Gen Z scores above average is “Find discourse interesting” which again goes back to the fact that their “political participation” is mostly about responding to online personalities.
Their passive, apolitical retreat from society seems to be linked to the “epidemic of loneliness” that also haunts Gen Z. Social isolation has been increasing in the USA, and the increase is concentrated among the younger generations:
Back in the 1990s, British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, upon discovering a correlation between primates’ brain size and the social groups they formed, concluded that humans have the brainpower to maintain about five close relationships. Most of us fall woefully short of that number, unfortunately. The average American’s number of close confidants (individuals with whom we can discuss important matters) has been shrinking. Adults in the U.S. had three confidants in 1985 compared to just two in 2004. And approximately one in four Americans reported having no close confidants in 2004—an almost threefold increase from 1985. More recent data show that one in five millennials have no friends at all. And a survey released in 2020 found that 71 percent of millennials and almost 79 percent of Gen Z respondents report feeling lonely—a significantly greater proportion than other generations.
By contrast, back in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville explained the starting point of all democratic civic life:
In democratic countries the science of association is the mother of science; the progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it has made... The most democratic country on the face of the earth is that in which men have, in our time, carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their common desires and have applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes.
Loneliness is the primary enemy of democracy. Isolation is the friend of dictatorships. Community is the starting point for all social action. I don’t know why Gen Z is so lonely, but their retreat from one another leads to a bleak assessment of the future of democracy.
On a related note, see "Organizing Alone: Alienation, the Death of Community, and Unions"
Jäger points out that the crisis of collapsing community affects unions as well. 'Despite surges of militancy in some sectors, the great resignation ushered in by COVID’s tight labor markets has not led to a politics of collective voice but rather to one of individual ‘exit,’ as Daniel Zamora put it. European unions have suffered a similar fate, losing members to self-employment.'
Here is an article about the desperation that Generation Z has for community — they are so desperate they try to turn gyms into a source of community:
In our conversations with the founders of CrossFit and SoulCycle, among many other community leaders, we've found a growing consciousness of the multiple functions these new communities provide. Six recurring themes have appeared: personal transformation, social transformation, purpose-finding, accountability, creativity, and, of course, community. Here, the connection depends less on shared identity, and more on shared practice. After hundreds of conversations over the last four years, my colleagues and I see more clearly than ever that we're living through a crisis of isolation in the United States. The public-health threat of loneliness is undeniable. Twenty-seven percent of the U.S. population lives alone. Community involvement has decreased. Studies show that being socially connected is associated with a reduced risk of early death, and that social isolation is now more deadly than smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being obese.
Many people in Gen Z now think about the political process as if they were consumers, rather than citizens, and some political organizers go along with that framing and treat progressive politics merely as a matter of marketing. This article, from a few years ago, shows that anger at Trump lead to progressive action, but it did not lead to the creation of permanent progressive institutions.
"The Loneliness of the Resistance Protester: Grassroots Democrats are marching and donating, but they are not forging a movement.”
By all these measures, the grassroots resistance among Democrats to Trump’s rise is clearly alive and well. But inside the impressive metrics of participation, there’s a worrisome hollowness to the Democratic revival. Grassroots Democrats are resisting a lot, but for the most part, they are not resisting together. Thanks to the affordances of tech and the preferences of big Democratic donors, they are, to borrow from Robert Putnam, resisting alone. This matters, because strong social ties are what keep people involved in the long term, through victories and defeats. The right has gun clubs and circles of home-schooling Christian moms; if the Left mainly builds systems for massing people just for the moments when they are most needed, it will miss a critical opportunity to revive a democracy centered on real people in relationships with one another.
In response to the Israel/Gaza war, some young people have said “I won’t vote for Biden. It’s time to teach the Democrats a lesson.” This attitude is that of a consumer, not a citizen. If you don’t like some brand then you can stop buying it, to register dissatisfaction. That’s how consumers punish a brand. But that’s not how political parties work. Political parties are drawn towards groups of likely voters. If the far left voters start saying “We will never vote for Democrats” then the Democrats have to shift to the right, to pick up more rightwing voters. If leftwing voters don’t want to vote for the Democrats, then the end result will be that the Democratic Party will become more conservative. But this basic fact of democracy seems lost on Gen Z, who don’t seem to understand how democracies work. (To better understand how democracy works, please see "Control of a political party entails engagement in the guts of its system of committees.”)
If you were only to look at some of the civil society organizations that were started in recent years, you might think that progressive organizing is alive and healthy:
Sunrise Movement
Voters of Tomorrow
Progressive Victory
Students Demand Action
YES All Daughters
Team ENOUGH
March for our Lives
Future Coalition
And yet, none of these organizations hold regular meetings at the national level. Unlike the churches and labor unions of the past, these organizations do not grow up from the bottom.
To be clear, these organizations do good work. For instance, the Sunrise Movement has brought a lot of attention to environmental issues, and they’ve helped elect politicians who are willing to support a Green New Deal. And the Sunrise Movement has a decentralized structure that imitates that of progressive organizations in the past. However, most of its local chapters are at universities. This points to one of the puzzles of modern American life: people enjoy real community during the years they are at university, but they seem unable to replicate this kind of community after they leave the university. Why is that?
Most of the civil society organizations that sprang up over the last 10 years are not as decentralized as the Sunrise Movement. These other organizations are basically just marketing organizations. I admire the people behind these organizations and I admire the good work they do, but they would do more to help build civil society if they fostered more local and national meetings. Maybe they market for a good cause, such as fighting for sensible limits on guns, but they are still mostly marketing organizations: they send marketing material to likely consumers, they raise some money, they spend some of that money on the goal (sensible limits on guns) and they reinvest the rest of the money into more marketing. In an era of political disengagement, this has become a preferred model for advocating for some cause. It does not ask for much from citizens, only “please send us some money.”
These things are clearly linked:
Gen Z is suffering an epidemic of loneliness
Gen Z is withdrawn from political action, other than liking things online
Grassroots organizations are starved for real participation from citizens, especially young citizens
Anything that can be done to draw Gen Z out of its isolation will also help democracy. Fixing loneliness fixes all other problems. Gathering together as groups, on a regular basis, towards some social end, is the starting point of all democratic action.
As a concluding thought, I end with this famous quote, a paean to the high levels of civic participation which used to make the USA unique:
The Moral Basis of a Backward Society
By Edward C. Banfield
Copyright © 1958 by The Free Press
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Page 7-10
Introduction
In democratic countries the science of association is the mother of science; the progress of all the rest depends upon the progress it has made.
--Tocqueville
Most of the people of the world live and die without ever achieving membership in a community larger than the family or tribe. Except in Europe and America, the concerting of behavior in political associations and corporate organization is a rare and recent thing.
Lack of such association is a very important limiting factor in the way of economic development in most of the world. Except as people can create and maintain corporate organization, they cannot have a modern economy. To put the matter positively: the higher the level of living to be attained, the greater the need for organization. Inability to maintain organization is also a barrier to political progress. Successful self-government depends, among other things, upon the possibility of concerting the behavior of large numbers of people in matters of public concern. The same factors that stand in the way of effective association for economic ends stand in the way of association for political ones too. “The most democratic country on the face of the earth,” Tocqueville observed, “is that in which men have, in our time, carried to the highest perfection the art of pursuing in common the object of their common desires and have applied this new science to the greatest number of purposes.”
…Americans are used to a buzz of activity having as its purpose, at least in part, the advancement of community welfare. For example, a single issue of the weekly newspaper published in St. George, Utah (population 4,562), reports a variety of public-spirited undertakings. The Red Cross is conducting a membership drive. The Business and Professional Women’s Club is raising funds to build an additional dormitory for the local junior college by putting on a circus in which the members will be both clowns and “animals.” The Future Farmers of America (whose purpose is “to develop agricultural leadership, cooperation, and citizenship through individual and group leadership”) are holding a father-son banquet. A local business firm has given an encyclopedia to the school district. The Chamber of Commerce is discussing the feasibility of building an all-weather road between two nearby towns. “Skywatch” volunteers are being signed up. A local church has collected $1,393.11 in pennies for a children’s hospital 350 miles away. The County Farm Bureau is flying one of its members to Washington, 2,000 miles away, to participate in discussions of farm policy. Meetings of the Parent Teachers Associations are being held in the schools. “As a responsible citizen of our community,” the notice says, “you belong in the PTA.”
It seems that the political commitments of generation Z are wide but not deep. Social media is a form of community, but not a very substantial one. It might be helpful to ask people to do things besides send money since the average person doesn’t have enough money to give every time they ask.