what does community mean to gen-z?

🇺🇸As a young kid I was always fascinated by the varying nature of communities around the world. My parents were keen on getting us well traveled and as I grew up on two sides of the world with the same generation, it always felt like two worlds. In America my generation was struggling with this notion that the old folk kept shoving down our throats called “playing outside”. What was this thing that felt so opposite to who we we’re supposed to be…we weren’t the mall kids that could be found hanging outside of target on the red cement balls, we weren’t the kids that caught up with friends at roller skate clubs or movie theaters. We didn’t ride our bikes or go to the park…who were we? We were different, my neighbor friend found out about the Paul brothers and King Bach at the same time as a kid in the arctic Circle. We had these things that a fruit company made called iPads… Ya, we have school but that’s not fun now is it? Is there really any fun in going outside when our dopamine levels are so high it makes us feel anxiety to stand in the glory of God’s creation? Also what’s with this lonely feeling we keep randomly feeling?

🇸🇸 On the other side of the world we were forced into community by tradition. We hate school but we love it, it’s a place to laugh and talk about the future of our nation, the newest one in the world. We’d rather be out in nature. We’d rather fashion games out of old tires and sticks than sit and learn European books filled with the Kings English. We didn’t know much besides rebuilding a war torn nation and constantly bracing for the day that we’d be forced to pack up our lives and leave for refugee camps. This is who we are, we need each other to survive. We are forced to know each other but we don’t think about it that way. Connection is a way of survival. We adopt strangers as family so long as we feel like it. We just didn’t think too hard about it.

🙎🏽‍♂️ So here I am. As I look at my fellow zoomers and live with the reality that we are growing and changing in a world that doesn’t feel like being so digital anymore, how do we connect? We’re grown, but we don’t know anything about forming real friendships face to face. We’ll look up our neighbors on Instagram before knocking on their doors and saying hello. So what does connection mean to us? Maybe it’s time we start looking for a definition. over.

Most of human intelligence is untouched.