Let’s talk about Generation Z, the youngest generation to come of age—roughly, those born between 1997 and 2012. Its members often seem like strangers in their own lands, and for good reason. Born into a maddening, disorienting virtuality, attached to smartphones from childhood, the “Zoomers” have grown up in a different country from their elders. Their homes and their schools may be somewhere but their minds are anywhere, and what should be familiar and therefore acceptable is perceived as alien and, at times, hateful.
Young men and women today are at war with the world. Deprived of the lubricant of local habits and traditions, they tend to experience reality as exasperating friction and suffer inordinate levels of anxiety, depression, and suicide. Their politics are outbursts of frustration. In Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Peru, Madagascar, Morocco, and elsewhere around the globe, the Zoomers have run wild in the streets.
