Diary of a Gen Z Student: 'Young people are tired and we’re dealing the best way we know how — bed rotting'

Jane Cowan: 'I was lying in bed in the early afternoon on a weekday, numbing my senses with a scroll on Instagram, and frankly, revelling in the feeling of my brain melting out of my head. Eureka! Bed rotting, that’s it.'

Sometimes, I find it difficult to figure out which behaviours of contemporary youth are the ones that need explaining to the elders who read this column. You see, when you partake in these behaviours, it can be difficult to see anything unusual in them.

It’s just how I live my life. It doesn’t feel particularly novel. But it recently dawned on me, as I was lying in bed in the early afternoon on a weekday, numbing my senses with a scroll on Instagram, and frankly, revelling in the feeling of my brain melting out of my head. Eureka! Bed rotting, that’s it.

One of the preferred hobbies of my generation: lying in bed for extended periods of time and scrolling on your phone. We will cancel plans with our friends to do it. And with earnest. And it probably is unique to Gen Z. It’s certainly difficult to imagine someone with cold, hard responsibility on their shoulders, lounging for hours on end in the name of "relaxation".

Is it a luxury enjoyed by college students with too much time on their hands, I hear you ask? Maybe. Is it healthy? Certainly not. Is it some new-fangled social media trend? No, Brendan — it’s a lifestyle.

Maybe it’s the overwhelm of the modern world, the depressing knowledge that people we love will need to die before we can make it onto any property ladder, or the sudden resurgence of men wearing ripped jeans plaguing our streets. All of these are, I think, cause for concern, but largely out of our control.

Maybe cocooning oneself in a duvet and attempting to deny the existence of the real world through endless social media use is Gen Z’s only defence. Maybe we don’t want to be engaging with the real. We gladly build time for this type of thing into our schedules. It’s our designated non-verbal time. No need to talk to anyone about anything, just lap up the glorious feeling of disjuncture from the real world.

Jane Cowan: 'We’re not isolating ourselves from our friends and families. We’re taking care of our mental health. Because our mental stability depends on our ability to disengage from the world around us.'

Before people lose their minds over young people and their inability to socialise or talk to each other, I would like to come to our defence. Have you ever considered the fact we’re the victims here? The marketing on this stuff is perfectly refined. Of course it is. We’ve had this type of bed-rotting behaviour neatly packaged and sold to us. We’re not wasting our lives!

No, we’re doing something truly productive, engaging in self-care. An essential act that is so aestheticised and curated on social media that you couldn’t possibly want to opt out. 

You use expensive face masks and wear silk pyjamas, wrap yourself in a blanket made from organic hemp, and drink iced oat milk lattes. You play a video of a crackling fire on your laptop, scroll TikTok on your phone and have Alexa play rain sounds softly in the background.

It’s all exceedingly Instagram-worthy. We’re not isolating ourselves from our friends and families. We’re taking care of our mental health. Because our mental stability depends on our ability to disengage from the world around us. Obviously. In fact, we probably convince ourselves that self-care is a radical act, one that liberates us from social conventions to be productive members of society.

I know. All of that stuff sounds lovely! Until you’re actually doing it, that is. Really, you’re marinating in your duvet for hours, watching vast quantities of social media content that you cannot recall, wrecking your ability to concentrate on anything that’s not highly entertaining and immediately enjoyable. It’s not pretty.

We tell ourselves it’s just what we have to do to get our energy back. Because sleep doesn’t feel like enough to replenish the energy of someone in their early 20s. It is a bit dystopian that we need to cut ourselves off from other people to feel capable of coping with life. I’m not arguing that we’ve come up with a perfect cure for our youthful burnout and premature midlife crises.

I’m not arguing that we’ve come up with a cure. I am no advocate for this stuff, though I do partake in it more often than I care to admit. Don’t shoot the messenger! I’m just letting the good readers know what’s going on with young people. We’re tired. And we’re dealing with that tiredness the best way we know how. I’m sorry I don’t have a better explanation for you.