Diary of a Gen Z Student: If your birth year starts with a 19, we experience social media differently

Trinity College student and Irish Examiner columnist Jane Cowan photographed at her home in Dunshaughlin, County Meath.

Since starting to write this column, I’ve been reminded of all the things older people struggle with when it comes to understanding Gen Z: Our dislike of phonecalls, our neologism, how we omit punctuation when we text, our desire for an old-fogey-free night club. The list goes on.

Plenty of my readers tell me this. I provide fodder for the keyboard warriors. They say I know nothing about real life.

And maybe they’re right. I don’t blame them; in fairness, I’ve got some questions when it comes to the social-media practices of my elders. 

Let’s be honest: If your birth year starts with a 19, we experience social media very differently.

Firstly, we certainly use different social-media platforms. Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat: I’m familiar with those. But when we get in to Facebook and LinkedIn, I lose my footing. 

You may as well ask me to use a landline, rewind a video tape, play a CD, make something from wattle and daub.

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For me, Facebook falls in to the same category as Myspace and encyclopaedia collections. 

If you’re still using any of them, you’ve most likely got the phone number of a chiropractor on speed dial. 

You might use phrases like ‘back in my day’ and ‘before the internet’. 

You’re probably the proud owner of a pair of skinny jeans, too. 

I’ll admit, I made a Facebook account once, to see if I was missing out on anything. But my dalliance didn’t last long. 

There were only so many posts by local mammies about missing cats I could look at before deciding Facebook probably wasn’t made for me - especially considering these cats usually went missing four years ago in another country.

LinkedIn is one social-media platform that I haven’t given in to. I just don’t think I’m there yet. 

I’ve had a scroll through someone else’s LinkedIn homepage, and I feel like I’ve seen enough.

Social media changes frequency when it’s dominated by millennials and Gen Xers. I have some questions. 

Everyone says that TikTok dances and Instagram selfies make my generation self-obsessed.

Sure, you might have a point. But, then, how do you explain LinkedIn? 

DELIGHTED TO ANNOUNCE

From what I can tell, it’s Instagram in a different font: Posting every career update, every promotion. 

Why is everyone so bloody ‘delighted to announce’ everything?

It’s a wonder that it’s so popular with Irish people. Here I was, thinking that any time something good happens, a proper, honest-to-goodness Irish person will actually point out everything negative about themselves.

What happened to responding to a compliment about your appearance with, ‘Oh, Jesus! This dress? I got it on sale in Penney’s, actually drove my car over it. 

Doused myself in holy water, to repent for having bought something so frivolous and selfish. And I’ve put on weight since I bought it, too! I swear I’ve not gotten notions. My feet are positively swimming in my boots.’

Ask anyone: I’ve never even thanked someone for a compliment. But all that seems to go out the window, when LinkedIn comes in to the picture.

People say social media has changed young people. But let’s not pretend this phenomenon is exclusive to us. Just because it’s in the name of ‘career progression’ doesn’t mean it’s not the same thing. 

LinkedIn seems to have taught Irish people to use ‘proud’ and ‘myself’ in the same sentence. The neck of it!

Our ancestors would be turning in their graves at these posts. 

Graves that they would probably argue they didn’t really deserve, because they’ve still got what was valued above all else, before social media was invented: Good, old-fashioned shame and self-loathing. Just saying.

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I know I’m probably going to succumb to the clutches of a LinkedIn account at some stage. 

And, by then, I’m sure the college students will be laughing at me for ever having a Snapchat account. Skinny jeans will probably be cool again.

They won’t know how to use earphones that come with a wire and my Instagram stories will be dated. This is the natural cycle of things, it seems.

I’m not judging, I swear. 

But with all the ridicule people my age get for our social-media use, I feel it’s only fair I get to ask similar questions.

With that, may the keyboard warriors commence.