The way people celebrate birthdays has changed over the years, although that shouldn’t be surprising. Preferences, demographics, societal norms, and, of course, budget all play a role.
To illustrate, let’s look at how Generation Z or zoomers welcomes another year in their lives compared to their predecessors, including the millennials, X generation, and the baby boomers.
1. Digital Natives
Although digital devices became popular during the time of the millennials, it’s Generation Z who’s considered to be the first real digital natives. After all, these are men and women born between 1997 and 2012.
Amazon began in 1994, the first smartphone by IBM appeared around the same time, the iPod came out in 2001, and the dot-com boom occurred in the late 1990s.
As digital natives, zoomers are likely to spend more time online than other generations. Although the baby boomers showed the greatest increase in activity in various social media platforms, including Instagram, according to World Economic Forum (WEF), the generation after the millennials remained the most active users.
They also surpassed millennials on their daily social media activity, spending almost three hours a day. Their favorite platforms include Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram, which are all visual-related.
With this in mind, a Generation Z birthday will revolve partly around aesthetics. Thus, a ride in one of the yachts of vipboathire.com.au might be more attractive than a birthday celebration in a restaurant. Yachts are gorgeous by themselves, but a cruise provides plenty of Instagrammable opportunities.
3. Passionate and Cause Oriented
According to Pew Research in 2018, the zoomers are set to be the most educated of all generations. Among 18- and 21-year-olds no longer in high school, almost 60 percent were already enrolled in either a two- or four-year college. This was 17 percentage points higher than Generation X and slightly above the millennials at 43 percent.
Generation Z children are also born at a time when information is at their fingertips. News is available 24/7, and they can get more when they check their social media. Like the generation before them, they are hyper-aware of social issues of the day, such as climate change.
How will this affect their birthday party? Zoomers might prefer to celebrate the occasion while showing off the causes they champion. They can raise funds for cancer research or volunteer in animal shelters.
Since they are knowledgeable and concerned about climate change, they might want their celebration to be more sustainable: the less waste, the better.
3. Financially Minded
A lot of people think that Generation Z will have it easy. Unlike the millennials, who experienced the significant effects of both the Great Recession and 9/11, zoomers didn’t go through any major upheaval—until COVID-19 happened.
The good news is that zoomers seem to have incredible knowledge about finance. In an industry survey involving over a thousand teens between 13 and 17, around 70 percent know about a credit score. At least 55 percent are aware of how stimulus checks work. Most of all, almost all of them value financial literacy.
The data are not a fluke. Even US Experian’s survey showed that only 30 percent owns a credit card, and less than 25 percent has a student loan. In other words, they are conscious and cautious about their spending habits and debts.
A good Generation Z birthday, therefore, is one that fits their budget. They are less likely to apply for a loan to finance a once-a-year event but instead focus their money on things they value more, such as experiences over material things. In fact, they can use their social media clout to look for sponsors for the celebration.
4. A Lack of Strong In-person Social Connection
Here’s the irony—and probably one of the biggest downfalls of—about Generation Z: they are some of the loneliest people today. In a survey by Cigna among 20,000 adults, both zoomers and millennials rated themselves the highest on loneliness.
Dawn Fallik, a University of Delaware professor who has written a book about it, said that the feelings might be due to the bombardment of information and connection the young ones receive online. Thus, when silence happens, they cannot cope with it and even think it is not normal.
Hence, a Generation Z birthday might be more intimate than that of other generations. The good thing is any friendship that transcends the screen is more likely for keeps.
A zoomer’s birthday might feel somewhat close to that of the millennials since they share many characteristics and less resembles that of Generation X and definitely the baby boomers because of the huge age gap. Nevertheless, because this generation also has its quirks, their celebrations will still be distinct.
