“Millennials” and “Z”: generations compared

Abstract

Generations “Y” and “Z” have lived through great changes that have followed the development of the media, first, and then of social media. The digital revolution accompanied by the end of post-modern culture has attempted to defeat the myths, symbols, and rituals that had characterized the mirror in which individual and collective behaviors found meaning for millennia. The breaking of the generational pact with the consequent absence of a story to be able to elaborate on identity construction has led to a continuous construction of the self based not on “who I am” but on “how I should appear”. In this framework, time and space have lost their meaning and the Other has become a container of rewards without being recognized in its true identity. The absence of otherness has created a void and given birth to new pathological forms linked to immediacy or to “everything now and immediately”.