GenZ emerges not merely as a demographic cohort but as a profound cultural disruption

Newer generations are meant to confound older ones. There is probably a contract signed between the generations. And yet, in India, immediately after liberalisation, the story was a little different. For once, generations seemed to be coming closer rather than diverging, with the older generation living vicariously through the younger one. But technology has changed all that. The divergence, somewhat tentatively, with the millennials, can now be seen in its full-blown form with Gen X.

Generation Z emerges not merely as a demographic cohort but as a profound cultural disruption. They are not just young people entering the workforce and starting their journeys as consumers and citizens; they are reimagining basic life concepts and ideas that previous generations have taken to be inalienable truths.

Consider their relationship with work-they see it in a fundamentally new way, much to the consternation of their employers. Their mental model of work is fundamentally liquid and lacks the defined shape of an earlier era. Traditional notions of professional identity-the step-by-step accretion of experience and rewards-no longer seem meaningful to them. GenZ sees work instead as a scatter diagram of possibilities, each moment fraught with potential boredom and revelation. The idea of having to wait to live a full life, to allow one’s career to come first, feels like an unacceptable compromise. Instead they construct identities that are horizontal, multiple, and remarkably fluid. A 22-year-old might simultaneously be a digital marketer, a part-time musician, a mental health advocate, and a nascent entrepreneur. Each role is not a sequential step but a simultaneous expression of a complex self. The idea of being any single thing feels like a form of strangulation.

This multiplicity is not just a career strategy but also a survival mechanism. Growing up in an era of economic uncertainty, climate anxiety, and technological disruption, they’ve internalised a deep scepticism towards institutional promises. The mythical “job for life” feels like a relic from an alien civilisation. Their world is one of constant flux, where adaptability is not a skill but a fundamental survival instinct.

Social media has been their primary landscape of self-construction. Unlike previous generations, who used digital platforms as supplements to their lived experience, for GenZ, these platforms provide the primary source material for their lives. Every moment becomes a potential performance, every interaction a curated narrative. The boundary between authenticity and performance has not just blurred-it has essentially collapsed.

This is a generation that is growing up without maps. They have to learn everything anew. With the meaning of essential life concepts having irrevocably changed-be it the meaning of work, the idea of careers, the pressure of creating a self out of a relentless projection of bits of the self, the rapidly evolving and perpetually unstable notion of relationships, the absence of any centring institutions-all lead to a constant search for something to believe in, to hang on to.

In their world, success is not a destination but a continuous negotiation. A start-up could be more meaningful than a corporate position, and a viral social media moment more transformative than a traditional achievement. Also, one can never be successful enough. There are self-made billionaires at 19, influencers with millions of followers at 16; nothing that they can do can possibly match up. What this results in is, at one level, a relentless finding of one’s own special ability and, at another, a sense of giving up any grand pursuit, given its seeming improbability.

The relentless need for self-presentation is mentally taxing. The pressure to be perpetually visible and to be “on”, to perform and calibrate one’s performances based on feedback, creates a unique form of existential fragility. Their mental health is not just a personal condition but a collective experience, shaped by instant peer comparison and the relentless demand to be simultaneously unique and yet belong.

Their disdain for traditional work codes is not rebellion but a clear-eyed assessment of systemic dysfunction. They’ve watched their parents struggle with recessions, corporate drudgery, and the erosion of work-life boundaries. Their resistance is not laziness but a sophisticated critique of extractive labour practices.

Interestingly, this generation harbours a profound paradox. They are simultaneously the most globally connected and the most individually isolated generation. They are never alone and always alone, never disconnected but feeling deeply detached.

Their relationship with institutions is transactional and provisional. They don’t join organisations; they collaborate with them temporarily. Loyalty is not to an employer but to a collective vision, a set of values.

This generation is creating new grammar for social and professional existence. They are not just changing workplace dynamics; they are reimagining the very concept of work, identity, and social belonging.

In essence, GenZ is not just a demographic transition. They are a profound sociological statement-a generation that refuses to be defined, contained, or understood through conventional frameworks. They are not waiting for the future; they are actively constructing it, pixel by pixel, conversation by conversation, moment by moment.

Views are personal. The author is Santosh Desai, Founder & Director, Think9 Consumer Technologies; CEO, Future Brands.