Is Gen Z the most creative generation?

Does Gen Z hate reading? (Photo: Social Change Central)

I received my first smartphone in 2013, when I was 14 years old. It was a hand-me-down iPhone 4 with a screen half the size of my current phone and a storage capacity of 32 GB. At the time, this was massive. It meant I could have access to the internet at any moment, have five thousand photos of Harry Styles, and still have space for Angry Birds.

In retrospect, owning a smartphone smack dab in the middle of my formative years had a huge impact on me. Like all other teenagers at the time, I was buried deep in the internet hellscape– films and television, books, YouTube videos, Tumblr blogs, communities, forums, memes, and so much more, right at the tip of my fingers.

As a young queer girl, I spent much of my time on Tumblr and Twitter, engaging with people with similar interests, expressing myself in spaces that made me feel safe. I read and read, spent hours illegally downloading ebooks and pouring through the fanfiction.net archives—and it made me fall in love with writing, so much that  I decided to make it my career.

Times are changing though. The numbers tell us that the platforms that were once popular are now slowly fading into obscurity, and the way we consume media is also evolving. But despite our differences, I think the experiences of Gen Z on the internet in 2022 still echo mine in 2014.

Gen Z ditches facebook

In 2014-15, 24% of teenagers said they were “almost constantly” online. A new study by Pew Research shows that that figure has nearly doubled to 46%, while 48% of their respondents said they use the internet “several times a day.”

Facebook turned 18 years old this year, and it currently still holds the crown as the most used social media platform, but experts predict that it won’t be long until they’re overtaken. TikTok is leaving Meta in the dust, and Gen Z’s preferences might just be the nail in the coffin. 

In 2014-15, 71% of teen respondents said they used Facebook. Now, only 32% say they have ever used it. Meanwhile, TikTok is growing at an unprecedented rate. At only 5 years old, 67% of teens use the app, and 16% are on it “almost constantly.”

YouTube, which is only a year younger than Facebook, is faring significantly better. 95% of Gen Z respondents said they used Youtube at least once, and a fifth of those said they are on the platform “almost constantly.”  Notably, older teens gravitate towards Instagram, with 73% of those aged 15 to 17 compared to 45% of those aged 13 and 14, saying they’ve used the app.

The trend is clearly pointing in one direction: visual-centric platforms. 

Gen Z is ditching text-heavy apps like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter in favor of platforms that focus on videos and images like TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Snapchat. Pew Research’s 2022 study shows that only 5% of youngsters have ever used Tumblr, versus the 14% in 2014. Twitter is only used by 23%, compared to the 33% eight years ago.

More creative than ever

I know what it looks like. The data shows that Gen Z doesn’t like apps that require reading and writing, so they’re just a bunch of vapid brats who need to be constantly visually stimulated, right?

But consider this: so much skill and creativity is required to create content on these platforms. Teens on TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram are also videographers, photographers, editors, graphic designers, and their own social media managers. They’re singers, dancers, musicians, writers, cooks, artists, comedians. 

More than half of Gen Z-ers prioritize creativity in their free time. When asked what they do in their spare time online, 48% cited a creative activity, like editing photos and videos, creating memes, or making digital art, while 56% said they use social media to express themselves creatively.

Through well-posed photos with vintage filters, videos of them dancing in their bedrooms, cooking tutorials, skits, and so many more—Gen Z are experts at expressing themselves. You might even call them Super Creatives. And more often than not, this creativity is channeled into the causes that matter to them.

So while those older than us may scoff at our TikTok challenges, Snapchat filters, and generally shorter attention spans, I take comfort in knowing that us growing up, absorbing a perpetual stream of content made us what we are now: a generation that is unafraid to create. Isn’t that kind of cool?