How to Get Along When Every Generation Thinks Differently

- For the first time in history, we are living in a society with seven different generations who don't seem to see a high-to-eye who hears experience a Gen Z stare. - It takes us a second to kind of, maybe buffer and kind of-- - Like, your brain is doing this. It's the little phone. - Like loading, literally loading. - We call it brain foe. - Yeah. (laughing) - On the flip side of Gen Z, I hear that the boomers are partying. They're having sex, they're smoking a lot of pot. - The boomers had free love in the 1960s and now they have free love in their 60s. (laughing) - We, as the older generation, aren't prepared for a generation that actually grew up in this technological age of being on their phones. They don't know how to connect. - They're not out playing with their friends. They're not solving problems on their own, developing that resilience and toughness. - I had one of my girls who started working as an architect. She's calling me about work-life balance and I'm like, what the hell? (laughing) - This is by far the biggest generational difference in work attitudes. - If one generation has expectations, the other generation doesn't care. How do we ever find middle ground? - Hi, everyone. I am delighted to be here with you on the Oprah Podcast for the first time in history. Did you all know this, that we are living in a society with seven different generations. Generations who don't seem to see high to high or even speak the same language sometimes and how is that showing up in our workplace in your school or within your own family? I wanted to ask the audience, what do you all think are the stereotypes about your own generation or the generation? So, Tanya, you're a millennial, which is ages 30 to 45 now. Y'all are getting older. (audience laughing) Y'all are getting older. What do you wanna say? - It frustrates me with Gen Z. I think their communication style is just a completely different style. It kind of lacks respect. Sometimes whereas I feel like millennials, we take a bit more care and respect than how we communicate. Okay, so you think millennials are more careful in their respect. Okay, thank you, I need a boomer now. That's age of 62 to 80, that's my group, Brenda. - Hi, I'm an educator and one thing that I see or several things that I see that are missing from generations because I've been doing this for a while is work ethic, accountability and toughness. So, the type of toughness that I grew up with or accountability that led to toughness, I don't see it. I have a lot of students who don't meet time lines and don't respect time lines. They don't respect time lines. And they have a lot of excuses for why they can't get things done. And they show up whenever they want to to class. And that's a problem. And the work ethic, they don't always give their best work when I know that they can do better. So, definitely. - Okay. I see a lot of genius ears here. Hello, thank you all. Age is 14 to 29, Madeline, your thoughts. - With Gen Z personally, I think that there was two events that really impacted how we kind of changed our behavior and kind of influenced how we moved forward. And I think a lot of technology advancements in COVID really impacted majority of people of my generation. And we kind of got left in this space where we weren't getting a lot of guidance from other generations 'cause I don't think the older generations knew how to teach us how to navigate these things because it was the first time anyone was experiencing it. But I really think it did impact and change my generation. 'Cause I think we are associated with a lot of negative stereotypes. But I think we were kind of expected to go through these things without knowing anything and we're expected to know everything. - Okay, so there's a lack of leadership, you say. What about what Tanya said earlier? Do you think that there is a problem in the level of respect? - I think there's a divide in Gen Z. I think there's a lot of people who do lack respect, but I think there's also a big part of my generation who does have that respect. I think that kind of comes down to a lot of external factors. But I do notice that there's a big divide in my generation with how we act and how we speak and how we behave. - Okay. And Gen X, I hear Gen X feels like they're the ignored middle children. What do you want to say about that, Kim? - I'm Gen X and we're the forgotten generation. There's so much said and the media and the culture, our culture about putting Gen millennials, pitting millennials against baby boomers. And it's like, we don't exist. And we're right here, front and center. So what happens is we get looked over for jobs, from healthcare, all sorts of things. But we're right here. - Yeah. And so what is that age range for Gen Xers? What is that? - So it's, Gen X is those born between 1965 and 1979. - Okay. Well, thank you all so much for your comments. To help us unpack all this, I'm joined by psychologist, professor and bestselling author, Gene Twingy. She's the author of Generations, the real difference between Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, boomers and silence. And what they mean for America's future. Welcome, Gene, thank you so much for being here. - Thank you. - Thank you. Can you briefly tell us what are the general traits of the generations, not stereotypes? Or maybe they are stereotypes, yeah. - Yeah, so the word generations was traditionally used to mean generations within a family. So grandparents, parents, children. But now we talk about social generations. So that would be the silent generation born in 1925 to 1945. So their name is really a misnomer. They really changed a lot of things. Two famous members, Martin Luther King Jr. and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. - Okay. - Then the boomers born 1946 to 1964. So silence changed the law, boomers changed hearts and minds in terms of just a lot of outdated social rules going away. - There were more boomers for a long time than any other generation, right? - Right, that's where they get their name from was the huge baby boom after World War II. So very, very large generation, still a very large generation. - Okay. - Followed by Gen X, a much smaller generation. 1965 to '79, that's whether it's the middle child. - That's where they're born. - Nored, yeah, feeling ignored and skipped over. But you know, Gen X brings their own strengths, very practical, really arguably the last generation to have a unified pop culture experience. - I'm in Gen X, or we love our pop culture. My favorite part of the book was talking about the very strange Saturday morning cartoons that we watched that I think were written by a bunch of boomers who were stoned. So I was like, it's hell, that's my guess. - Yes. - Then we have Millennials, so born 1980 to 1994. And they become known for kind of breaking down institutions. So marriage, religion, things like that. Having a lot of self confidence and optimism, although that's curdled a little bit in the last two years. - Then Gen X. So born 1995 to nobody knows yet, but we're kind of getting a consensus around 2009, maybe for the last year. So Gen X is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. So that's had ripple effects across many areas of their lives, terms of their experience with social interaction and lots of other things. So after Gen Z, that's another one where we don't really know yet, but there's consensus forming around alphas. So after Gen Z, we have another younger generation. And to name them, we have a problem because we ran out of letters. So what are we gonna do? So we'll go back to the beginning of the alphabet called them alphas, is what a lot of people have said. - Ah. - That's the baby children coming up now, yes. - Yes, yeah, exactly. So that younger group is still an elementary school, maybe the beginning of high school. - And this is what you write, I found so interesting that the generation we are born into impacts every aspect of our life. Think about that, y'all. It impacts our attitudes, our values, our economic conditions, our opportunities, even our well-being. Some people have challenged this idea, how so? - Yeah, well, I think pretty much everyone agrees that growing up now, living now is completely different from what it was like to live 100 years ago. - Right. - You know, or 50 years ago, even 20 years ago. There's just so many changes in technology and the way that we led, the way that we relate to each other and everything else. Where you get the challenges as people say, well, why are we putting people into these arbitrary 15 to 20 year groups? Well, because that's really an easier way to study people. Otherwise, how would we have the language? Would we have to say each individual birth year, people born in the 70s? And there are some reasons to group people that way. It allows us to just understand more about each other, which is really the point, you know, not to point fingers or stereotype, but to try to understand each other better. That's why I got into doing this in the first place. - Okay, so you write about a phenomenon called the slow life strategy. What is that? - Yeah, so it explains so much about how things have changed over the generations. So when you have a society that's just more technologically complex, people live longer, so we have better medical care. And then education takes longer to finish. So it slows down the whole life cycle, like not day to day, but in terms of time, of years, that people take longer to grow up and longer to grow old. So in childhood, kids are less independent, teenagers are now much less likely than say Gen X was at the same age to have a driver's license or to have a police job. Yes. Much less likely. And why is that? That they're less likely? That's what I hear. The teenagers now don't have driver's license. That's right. Nor care about driving. Right. And why is that? Well, there's a couple reasons. So one is the party's on Snapchat or Instagram, but that's one element. But it is also this slow life strategy. They just are not as eager to do adult things in the way that Gen X or even millennials were at the same age. They look at having a driver's license and they're like, you know, oh, see, I thought it was because of Uber. Well, until really recently you couldn't take Uber until you were 18, plus we see the decline in driver's licenses, even in rural areas where Uber isn't around, Uber's expensive too. So, and it's also not just a driver's license. They're less likely to have a paid job. They're less likely to go on on dates. They're less likely to drink alcohol. So nobody's getting jobs at 15 and 16 anymore. Not as much. Not as much. It's much less common. So all of those adult things, those happen later. So they're just taking longer to do those things. That's right. That's called the slow life strategy. Yeah. And then it shows up in young adulthood, too. There's this reluctance to become an adult, you know, it's now a verb. It's adulting. Right? And that's. And nobody ever says adulting for all the fun things about being an adult, like being independent. It's things like doing laundry and paying your bills. Yeah. I guess that focus on, oh, that's no fun. But just on the practical matter, young adults take longer to settle into a career, to get married, to have children. But it goes on. Because middle-aged people look and feel younger than their parents or grandparents that at the same age, thank God for hair color. Yeah. It's actually biomarkers, too. They've looked at it. Is it? We actually are younger than a few decades ago. It's not just hair color. Yeah. No, it isn't. Nora Efron once said that hair color is the greatest gift ever given to women that lady color. Yeah, yeah. It made a huge difference because, you know, it just did. Yeah. Yeah. And I will always color my hair. I will be in the casket colored. So go ahead. So that's middle-aged. And then, just as people get older, they enjoy more years of health and more years of life. Yeah. And so all of that has contributed to the slow life strategy. Yes. Everything I do begins with intention. You become exactly what do you believe is possible. Especially, the Oprah podcast. 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And Geico is there to make the journey more manageable, to help guide you with insurance designed to keep you covered through it all because life happens in ways we can't always predict and with the right support, we keep driving forward. And that, dear LeSter, is everything. So Amanda Schneider is a researcher and writer and her upcoming book is called Work for What's Next, Why Workplace Culture is Failing and how the next generation can fix it. Welcome Amanda. Thank you. So I'm so happy that we're having this conversation because I hear all the time, the, you know, differences between the generations in the workplace and you say, work is broken, how so? So I think we are actually changing them vernacular when we think about work. And I think unfortunately right now we're focused on the wrong problem. When we hear people talk about work today in the media, especially it's around return to office, but we can't fix a how problem with a wear solution, bringing them back won't matter if there's a problem with how we're working. So the next generations who are naturally digital first, meaning they see the world through a digital mindset, can really help us figure out how to evolve work for this digital era, meaning blending, physical, and digital work. Right. And so I know that some geniuses say that they've gotten a bad rap. Do you think geniuses have gotten a bad rap in the workplace? Definitely. Definitely. People say they don't want to work as hard as their parents. Yeah. They demand work-life balance and believe in, don't really believe in loyalty to the company. Are those generalizations true? They're true, but there's another perspective there as well. Okay. What is it? So if we want to look at their perspective, we have to understand how they think. And I think that we have to do more to bring these generations together. So if I had to summarize kind of what's shifting, work used to be a noun, and I think some older generations think about work as a physical place, meaning when my dad said he was going to work, it meant he was physically taking his bag and he was going to an office, right? Yes. Yes. When these younger generations think I'm going to work, if you look at how my kids hear me when I say I'm going to work, it means I'm going to open my laptop somewhere, might be at an office, might be at home, might be somewhere in between. That's a fundamental difference in the way we perceive the language of it. I think it's a fundamental difference in how these different generations see the world. Okay. And so to fix work, we're going to have to really understand and fix the systems that are evolving from a noun to a verb. Gene, you even write that Gen Z is skeptical for the need for hierarchy in the workplace. You call this flattening, explain what that is. Yeah, so it goes along with individualism, just more focus on the self and less on others. It's been another big change in the culture over the years that shape generations. So in the workplace, it just means a lot less hierarchy. And we've seen this across many decades that it used to be people would call their boss by their last name, you know, Mr. Jones, Mr. Patel, right? And now it's Mike or Priya, you call them by the first name. You might even call them bro if you're if you're in Gen Z. Yeah. Really? Just much more casual. And we see this in dress. Call your boss, bro. I don't. Yeah. But you would call some people call their bosses. My kids probably will. My kids call me bro. Okay. All right. I am from San Diego. Okay. Explain some of it. Okay. Yeah. But it comes out in dress too that it used to be people would wear suits to work and really dress up to work. And then it was, oh, in the 90s, we had casual Friday and now every day is casual Friday. Yeah. And again, for my kids, maybe people looking at them, I'm kind of wondering if in the future people will end up at work wearing pajama pants. Maybe we're already there. Yeah. I think we are. Yeah. And it also just comes in how people relate to each other and that it used to be much more common for bosses just to tell employees, okay, this is what you're going to do and they would go and do it. And now it's much more of a team mentality and much more of the manager working with people rather than ordering them around and talking more about why we're doing what we're doing and why it's important rather than just go do this because that's what I told you to do. Well, the baby boomers are pushing off retirement and Congress is even considering raising the retirement age from 67, I hear, to 70. And today's college graduates have been described as trying to merge on a freeway and nobody is letting you in, so I would like both of your reactions to that, what do you say? I think it's definitely a challenge today. We need to think about new systems, meaning more consulting options, you know, gig economy is actually growing, that's very attractive to Gen Z. I think it's also very attractive to, you know, maybe boomers that are ready to retire but don't want to step totally out of the workforce. So I think there's a real opportunity to relook at some of these systems around this evolving perception of what work needs to look like for the future. So how do you think this is impacting the younger generations? Well, I mean, there's some good news here as boomers are a very large generation. Many of them are retiring, that opens up a lot of opportunities for young workers. I mean, I think we really saw that a few years ago right after the pandemic, it opened up a lot of those opportunities. It's just now the least perception is AI is taking a lot of those opportunities away. So there's a real reconsideration. There was a time when everybody was talking about quiet quitting their jobs. And now, I think the thing is job hugging, what changed? Yeah, I think it's this era of risk aversion, you talk about the slow life. I think we're shifting. from an era of slow life, lots of friction, to a fast life with not much friction at all. I think it's why we're hearing about this, not a lot of grit from younger generations, maybe because they haven't had to develop it, kind of in the same way. That is really gonna have us rethink how we're looking at all of our systems. - And so all of the stereotypes about generations, we've had this for years, have we not gained everybody's stereotypes generations? - Yes, but I mean, that's one of the reasons I got into the field in the first place, looking at surveys where you look at what young people have to say about themselves, because then you're not stereotyping, you're listening. - And what have you learned the most about the Jinziers? - Oh, so many things. But if we're gonna focus on work, some of those ideas around work ethic, that is what they say themselves. They are less willing to work over time, they're less likely to say that work is a central part of their life. They also are more likely to say that they want a job where they can help others. - More likely to say. - Yes, yes, yeah. - And that's because of what Amanda was saying, work doesn't mean to them what it meant to our generation or to the Gen X generation. It actually doesn't mean the same. - Maybe, maybe not. - We should ask them. Jody is Jinzy and moved to New York to pursue a career in fashion and she works for a luxury brand and says work life balance is very important. Jody, tell us why. - Yes, so work life balance is very important to me because of the way that I grew up. So I grew up in a Filipino immigrant family. So they worked to survive and to support the family. So work life balance wasn't a priority for them. So for me, when it came to my career, I had a dreamer mentality. I took a different career path than them. I moved from California to New York to pursue fashion and styling. I worked multiple jobs, including retail, worked my way up the corporate ladder in luxury fashion and it gave me the ability to continue to build my business but also still have that stable income. So work life balance is really important. I set hard deadlines and hard boundaries between myself and work and sometimes that may be perceived as like, I'm not working as hard, but I am, I'm just-- - But come find a car through your house. - Yes. - Okay, so I think this is so interesting because I have mentored a lot of girls from South Africa who were at my school and now I think I don't know what generation they are, but anyway, I had one of my girls who started working as an architect. Try very hard to get a job as an architect right out of USC and got a job at the architectural firm here in New York, really prominent architectural firm, started working for a month in. She's calling me about work life balance and I'm like, what the hell? (audience laughing) What the hell, you got the job? There's no such-- I mean, my generation, there was no such thing as work of life balance and I think this pendulum was way over on the other side and we swung too far, but the idea that you're supposed to have work life balance when you first start a job is just a foreign concept to our generation. But you believe that is your right. I believe it's my right. I know there are certain times like I'm not afraid to go ahead and stay later during busy times, but normal times where work is manageable, I'm off the clock. And don't call me on the weekends and don't call me past all that. But I also do work in a business. How's it working for you? Yeah, it's great. I love it. I'm very fortunate to work in a company that has good work life balance and most of us don't work on the weekends. That's great. Yeah, I mean, this is by far the biggest generational difference in work attitudes when you take age and career stage out of the equation. So that work life balance piece. So this is one of the biggest generational divides because there's a lot of baby boomers. Sometimes even Gen Xer managers who look at this and say that didn't exist when I was starting up. And when I was coming up in this job, it just wasn't there. And they see it as a lack of work ethic yet. Gen Z says, look, I want to have a life. I want to get enough sleep. I want to have mental health and wellness. And they have a point. So you get that divide. And one place where the divide really ends up coming up a lot is the idea of a mental health day. So there's a lot of older managers who are like, you want a mental health what? Yes, really. But then there's Gen Z, who says, no, of course, of course, that should be completely acceptable. Just as it's acceptable to take a day off when you're physically sick. Yeah, I had somebody who told me that someone in the Gen Z generation had said that to them. And they said, as the employer, the weekend is your mental health day, which is the way we all grew up. So the reason why we have this divide is because there needs to be a shift in the way we, the older generation, thinks about the younger generation. That could be one way to think about it. Or it could be that both have a point. And we have to meet somewhere in the middle. If one generation has expectations, the other generation doesn't care. Or thinks that your expectations are completely unreasonable. Yeah, I mean, we can find things that are the win-win solutions for giving the generation what they want in the short term. That's also good for them in the long term and for the organization in the long term. And there are some of those solutions. Like more coverage of mental health care might be one of those examples. I know, but then I would be wary of the, you know, a lot of people talk about mental health days and mental health days for a lot of people is, I don't feel so good. Right. And that's why those are hard. The mental health day piece is difficult. Yes. So, like, some companies are doing this cool thing where they give starting employees a wellness grant and they can spend it however they want. They can spend it for therapy. They can spend it to buy a better mattress or an expensive pillow or whatever will make their life better. So Susan is Jen Akson was an elementary school teacher for 20 years. And she wrote to us saying, if you want to know what the generational divide is like, come sit in a public school staff meeting. [LAUGHTER] Oh boy, I can only imagine what that's like, yeah. Well, you can tell the generations without even having conversation yet. The Gen X and the boomers will be in their corner with the stack of papers grating, heads down. And there was a lot of the millennials that collaborated and talked. And then at the end of the meeting, the younger generation would have their hands in the air asking why we're doing this. And then you see like the glares like, because we're going to do this. You know, that was our way as you were told kind of what to do. And we did it. And the younger generations of teachers are coming in and talking about it, talking about how we're going to fix the problems, especially with mental health. After COVID is where I saw the largest generational divide happen. Kids came in, the alpha came into my classroom. And they are so used to being behind screens. That normally, when you say, let's get a partner, the kids want to get partners. And I was seeing 10 kids not wanting to have that peer interaction. They couldn't. They didn't know how. But the most interesting part to me was the adults don't know how to teach that. We were never taught to talk about our feelings or emotions. We pushed on, I'm just fine. I'm fine when you're crumbling. And now these kids are in front of you. And they're talking through body language, through reactions, through anger. And the older generations, and I told my students, I don't know how to help you. But I'm going to find a way. I told my daughter Madeline one day, I don't know how to mommy through this. I'm going to Google it. She said, did you just say you're going to Google it? I didn't know how to help her. That never happened to me. But I think that was so wonderful in my classroom was I gave them transparency and vulnerability. And they want that. But there's so many adults, we all know. We didn't learn how to parent. We didn't learn how to get through conflict. Yeah. One of the things I gathered from reading Generations Generations, there are distinct differences. And we, as the older generation, aren't prepared for a generation that actually grew up in this technological age of being on their phones. And we just aren't prepared. No. We just aren't prepared. And so what are you suggesting? I really think there are some great social and emotional curriculum coming out. Teachers kind of whitenuckled the book. Because when they're trying to teach these ways to communicate, they aren't used to doing it. So teachers are kind of famous for it if we don't know how we're not going to do it. Yeah. Because we haven't found it. And haven't you found in those staff meetings or in general, too? And certainly, you have Jean in your writing that every generation is resistant to change. Oh, absolutely. But. In schools right now, it's crumbling. Schools are our future. And they're wanting to have a connection. They don't know how to make it. You mean the oldest generation with the younger generation? I even mean just the younger generation with their peers. - Okay. - Because they're behind. - Because they're behind their iPad. - Yes. - And so they don't know how to connect. - They don't know, they don't know how, because they don't have as much experience. I mean, building social skills takes thousands and thousands of hours. And so the children are just, they're not having that experience growing up. They're not out playing with their friends outside in the way that previous generations grew up. They're not solving problems on their own, developing that resilience and toughness they came up earlier. It's just, it's not happening as much. And then it's not happening when they're teenagers, because instead of the iPad, then they have the phone. And so again, and we know this from tons of data, they're not just hanging out with their friends, going to parties, going to the mall. Any of these things about just getting together with friends in person, those rates have been cut in half. They're just not doing that as much as previous generations did. - Because they're just on their phones. - That's primarily what it's replaced. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Thank you, Susan. Well, last summer you all might recall that the term Gen Z stare took off on social media. Who here has experienced the Gen Z stare? Okay, okay. You wanna explain to us what it is? I've never, I had never experienced it. I didn't know what they were talking about. But go ahead. - The basic idea is often, you know, in some sort of like service interaction with someone that employee will just do like this. Kind of a blank expression. As if, you know, we don't even, I don't know. I don't think the rest of us can really figure it out. - Okay. - But what's going on with it? But that's what it usually looks like. Okay, so 18-year-old Demetrius posted this response on TikTok to the older generations. - We have the Gen Z stare because most of y'all are just clueless. - Can I have a cheeseburger with no cheese? Some customers make you question. How are these real people? It says remove my card. Do I remove my card? - Most of the time it's us trying to figure out if you're being for real or not. - I don't say that it's out of stock. Do you have any more in the back? But then somehow we're the mean ones. (audience applauds) - Demetrius, is it really that bad? - Yes. - It's that bad? - Yes. - Yeah. - Okay, what do you want the older generation to know about your generation? - We didn't choose to grow up and such a digital, like social media-based society. This is what we were grown and raised into. So something that maybe older generations might call and sensitive, or even sensitive in some cases, is just a natural result of how we're experiencing our environments and whatnot. - Yeah. And so when you have those kind of encounters, what is the reason for the stare? (audience laughs) I'm not saying for you specifically, but the reason that's become a thing is why? - In social media, everything's fast-paced. We're so used to instant gratification, instant leading scrolls, text messages. So we're used to fast-paced whatever. So when we're doing this stare, when something's slow, or maybe confusing in real life, it takes us back a little bit. And so it takes us a second to kind of, maybe buffer and kind of figure out what is going on. - Like your brain is doing this, it's the little circle. - Literally, loading, yes, loading, yes. - That is funny, that is funny. - And you're taking a second to buffer. (audience laughs) - Yeah. - Yes. - Is it because you think we're stupid? Is that, do you really think we're stupid? Are you irritated or what? The stare is like-- - A little bit of both, kind of. (audience laughs) - We're not stupid, but a lot of the times, we're just, when we view work, we don't see work as something that's enjoyable, especially with now with social media, there's constant creators and influencers, where they're making tons of money, just doing whatever. That plays a really big role in how we view work as well. - Yeah, because the new aspiration is to become a TikTok influencer. - Right. - Yeah. - Which, it's kind of like back in the day, you played middle school basketball, and you said, okay, then I'm gonna be in the NBA, in the millions. - Yeah. - And that's the problem with that dream, only a very few, can you do that, and really make a living off of it? - Yeah. - But that's kind of that new dream, but it's true, it feels like it's winning the lottery, and then you can just make all that money doing that. And there's data to back up that too, that Gen Z's a lot less likely to say, at the age of 18, they're less likely to say that they expect their chosen work to be satisfying, because that had actually been going up from boomers to Gen X just to millennials, a lot of optimism, and then it just plummets, a lot more pessimism in general with Gen Z, but especially around work. - Do you feel that? - Yes. - You do. So your goal isn't to find a job that fills you with meaning and purpose, or is it your goal? - I think the issue is that the older generations, they maybe if you work as working in the physical place eight hours a day, or as for us, we see work as something that's fun and enjoyable. - That's exactly what Amanda was saying in her book, yeah. - And consign creating where influencing is probably the closest thing to that in terms of having a job that's both financially stable and also personally satisfying. - But I'm like, if you're going to live in a world where everybody's an influencer, who's left to be influenced? (audience laughing) - After a while, right? I don't know. - Yeah, for you. - Thank you to Beatrice Sink, that was a cute video. Let's talk about love and relationships. When the silent generation was in their 20s, seven in 10 women were married. So the silent generation, what generation is that? - Born 1925 to 1945, so they were young in the 50s. - Okay, they were young in the 50s, and so seven in 10 were married. For Gen Z, that number has dropped down to one in 10. Elizabeth Wimpy is a self-proclaimed dating journalist and interviews singles in her hometown of Dallas. Let's watch these short clips. - When it was the last time a guy approached you. - I literally can't remember. That's how long it's been. When it was the last time you approached your girl. - Honestly, never in my life. - Normally, I do not approach men. I will smile and do like a little finger wave, and then that's my approach, so you're not into boss babe. - No, I just think that bossing a man around is outside of woman's nature. - Are you on the dating apps? - Reluctantly. - How is that working for you? - It's not great. - It was just becoming too much of a slot machine. - The gamification of dating. I was like, ah, this isn't going anywhere. - She's open to coming back on the first night for me. That's a-- - Oh, that's a red flag. - It's a red flag. I'm not close to it. It's just, it's not gonna be a long term for me. - Have you ever ghosted someone before? - I have. - Have you been broken up with? - I've known. I've never been in a relationship. - How's it dealing with 20-year-old men? - It's from a thought here. The bar is in hell. - Chill. - The bar is in hell. Welcome, Elizabeth. - Hi. - Okay. What is, why is Gen G not dating, do you think? - I feel like we're having an identity crisis. A lot of people don't know who they are. The comparison culture is rampant, and the dating apps is creating a really competitive-- - The comparison culture is rampant because you're comparing yourself to everybody else on your screens. - On the dating apps, yes. - Okay. - An average looking men are virgins later in life, like till they're 30, because they're getting rejected all the time. - Okay. - Yeah, and the confidence is just not there. - It's not there. And so when did you start to notice this happening? - So I started, I was meets on the streets, May of 2025, and as I've interviewed so many people, and that's the thing that's come up, is people just don't know who they are anymore. - Okay, well, how are people gonna know if they're on their phones all the time? - No, exactly. They don't know how to communicate. Like you said previously, you said it takes hours for thousands of hours. - Thousands of hours? - Thousands of hours to develop social interaction. No one knows how to do that anymore. Like approaching a woman is just weird now. - Yeah, and many, the guys that you were asking on there saying they never had a date before, that's shocking to me. Was that shocking to you also? - Yes. - Well, a recent poll asked 100,000 college students about their sex lives, and 35% said they scrolls on their phones during sex. How's that working for you? And some even admitted to stopping sex to text their moms. (audience laughing) Jean, what is going on? (audience laughing) What is going on, brah? (audience laughing) - Addiction? I mean, that's what that feels like. I mean, that's so often the narrative that I hear, when I talk, yeah, I give a lot of talks at school, so from middle school students, high school students, even college students, even a lot of older adults, say, I just can't put it down, I can't put the phone down, I can't delete the social media apps, because they're designed, they're designed to be that way, that's how they make the most money, and so they're gonna have that element of, I don't really want to be on this thing, but I feel like I have to, it's very much an addict's narrative. - Wow. On the flip side of Gen Z, there's the boomers, and I hear that the boomers are partying. There's a reported rise in drinking. not with the gynezeers, but with the boomers. -Mm-hmm. -And boomers are drinking. They're having sex, and they're having-- -They're smoking pot? -They're smoking a lot of pot, and they're having sexually transmitted diseases, like gonorrhea, has increased more than six times with boomers since 2010. So what's going on with the boomers? -Yeah. -Well, the boomers had free love in the 1960s, and now they have free love in their 60s. [ Laughter ] That's what's happening with the boomers. -Yeah. [ Applause ] -But how does that fit into the slow-life strategy theory? What's actually happening? -I do think a lot of it is generational that that's what boomers really pioneered. You know, they were the first generation to smoke pot at such a high level. They did drink a lot when they were younger. They did pioneer, in many ways, the idea of, yeah, let's have sex, that's how to marriage, and that's cool. So that has continued as they've gotten older, and they just, many of these things, they've seen no reason to give it up just because they're getting older. -Yeah, and we just recently did a podcast on "Great Divorce," how the greatest number of people who are getting divorced in this country are not people under 40 or people 40 or under 50 even. It's people over 65. -Wow. -Because people are recognizing that you're living longer. I've been in this marriage, not doing it for me. And I'm gonna go smoke some pot and have a good time. You know, right? And hopefully not scroll on their phone while they're-- -And not scrolling on their phone, how there's-- -So for women of a certain age, I'm talking about boomers, Gen X, and now the elder millennials. I know you've seen the explosion on TikTok over the "We Do Not Care Club," here it is. -Hello, and welcome to our new and existing members of the "We Do Not Care Club." -We do not care if our hair is thinning on our head and thickness on our chin. "We Do Not Care," that we clean our cell phone screen by rubbing it on our boobs. It works. -We do not care if you hear us talking to ourselves and occasionally answering ourselves, too. We are having a staff meeting. Leave us the hill alone. -Hi, Melanie. [ Cheers and applause ] -Welcome, Melanie, head of the "We Do Not Care Club" Melanie Sanders. When did you realize you didn't care anymore? -You know, I was sitting in my car one day. I had his directing. And with that, his directing became paramount of pause. I was sitting in my car one day, and I was looking in the review mirror. And I just-- I was putting so much pressure on myself. And you know, you got to go clean. You got to go cook. You got to go do this. You got to do do do do do. And I just said, "You know what, Melanie?" "You do not care much anymore." You got to stop it. I am at capacity. That was the moment. I said, "We do not care." -And then did you realize once you posted that that there are a lot of other people in that club? -Oh, boy. I had no idea. -I see the back row going. -Yeah. And presently, "We Do Not Care Club," really. -Yeah. -Okay. -Yes, yes. It's-- you're being at capacity, you know? It's the pressures of, especially in the paramount of pause, minipause space. Like, we're tired. And Demetri, as you were saying, "Buffering," we call it "brainfo." -Yeah. [ Laughter ] -We can stand there. So while you're buffering in the little confused, we're standing there. We're just as confused. So that, you know, we're different. Our bodies are changing, you know? And we have to repart our ties, our level of cares. And how has this declaration or affirmation of attitude has it helped you? Is it working for you? -It is. It really is because the pressure's gone. No more pressure. You know, I think we-- all of us, you know, especially like with social media and all the different, you know, things, the comparisons, and the judging ourselves, judging others. But when you just say, "You know what? I just don't care." You know, it's not in a bad way. Not in a bad way where you're being a mean girl or anything, but just really understanding that I am not the same girl. I used to be-- I don't move the same. I don't think the same. You know, things are different. And I'm not going to put the pressure on myself anymore. -I see everybody nodding behind you. So it looks like you spoke for a whole generation. -She's being herself and being authentic, which is something that resonates a lot across generations now. -So let's talk about family life. Pamela Lieben is the president of a real estate firm here in New York City. What are you seeing among the generations? I mean, most generations can't-- I mean, younger Gen Z's can't even afford to buy their own homes. -Yeah, I mean, it's a real bummer. And I think Gen Z gets a really bad rap as to why they can't buy. And it's so interesting. I've learned a lot today just even hearing this. But, you know, back in 2007, 21% of home purchasers were first-time home buyers, right? I'm sorry, the average age was like 27, okay? It was 21% of the market. Now the average age is 40, 40 years old before you can afford to buy a house. And Gen Z, I mean, they're just coming out of a different situation. They're loaded with student debt. Prices are so high, so it's so hard to save money. There was a survey done, they said, "If you could have one thing given to you, what would it be?" And they said a 20% down payment for a home. See, just can't afford it. The rents just came out today in New York. $5,000 average rent. Medium and home price in the United States, almost $420,000. It's not a level of playing field from where it was. So you have seen a trend even in your working of older versus younger people being able to afford homes? Absolutely. I've been in the business for a long time. And I remember someone could come out of school. They didn't have a ton of student debt. And they would be able to buy a house. Maybe they had a little help from their parents. But maybe they were spending $200,000 or, you know, a minimal amount of money. Today, to buy a studio, if you're living in one of these really expensive cities, for a million dollars, you're buying a studio apartment. One of the saddest things for me having seen this is the American dream. A lot of wealth is built on home ownership. And if you can't buy that first place and then sell it to get another bigger place and another one, you just never get to build that. And we've seen historically what's happened when people are blocked from doing that. Yeah. Thank you, Pamela. Thank you so much. The Census Bureau has tracked a rise in three or more generations living under one roof. That's up since the 1970s. And this video went viral. And a woman surprised four generations of her family with a home for all of them. Take a look at this. This is so great. Welcome! [SCREAMING] [SCREAMING] [GUNSHOTS] [SCREAMING] [INAUDIBLE] [INAUDIBLE] Alexis, that's great. [APPLAUSE] So tell us what made you decide to do that, first of all? Yeah, as a young person, I grew up living in the same apartment complex as my family. So we all had multiple units in the same building, and we would bounce around having family meals every night, watching the big games, and sharing holidays together. And so it was all fun during the day, but then when it was night time, it was time to retreat back to our individual units. And I just kind of felt even as a young person why are we not just all in one house doing this. And so I made it a life goal of mine. [APPLAUSE] I love surprising people. So how did you do it? Would you tell them, where were they going? Where do they think they were going? So my cousin, who was the one leading them into the house, told them that he was thinking about buying something that was a fixer-upper, told them not to touch anything. When they went in there, he kind of just scooped them up and asked them to come visit and see this property he was interested in. And so reluctantly, they were like, what? Yeah, I mean, I guess, sure, we can go see it. But little did they know they were literally on the way to their forever home. So how are all the different generations? It honestly is very great. And I think it is a bit different than most people would expect. I'm sure I'm in the minority of someone who's able to live and exist in one house with my family. But we have a close-knit family structure. Everyone kind of knows their place. Everyone has their own respective areas that they kind of own in the home, which is why it's important to have a larger home for these purposes. And everyone kind of has their own responsibilities that they manage. And how has everybody living together? Has it, has it helped? Everybody financially? Has it helped? Absolutely. I think that, you know, the big thing for me, just the older that I got at first, you know, as a young person, it was more so just why, why are we doing this? Why are we all separate? As I got older, I saw the financial opportunity that there was. Like, okay, there's not multiple sets of utilities being paid. When you can solidate, you know, everyone wins on the back end financially. And everybody gets along and it's going along. And everyone gets along surprisingly. It's not like you're supposed to be there right now, really. That's great. That's great. So, all right, how do we make it better in the workplace, Amanda? In the workplace, I think we have to treat generations as prototypes, not stereotypes. That means trying to bring these groups together. They communicate fundamentally differently, right? One group is analog first. Another group is digital first. We have to get them talking together. When you prototype something, you keep what works. And you help them iterate on what doesn't. 'cause I think a big problem right now is-- - But how would we fit, how do you physically do that? It's one thing to say, let's bring the two generations together. - Yeah. - So as a gen exer, does she invite the gen zeer to lunch or does she, how does that actually happen in real life? - I think it's about getting them to talk about norms in a new way. Because we expect Gen Z to just know these norms that we've all grown up with, but they don't always know what they don't know. So as we shift from this work as a noun to work as a verb, really giving them space to kind of talk about what normal looks like to them, what better could look like for all of us? - Okay, so is it important for people of the older generation to gen exers and the boomers? And even now, the millennials, y'all, they're getting alter to understand that the noun verb analogy is real for gen zeers. - I think it's important for everyone to understand. I think it's important for the gen zeers to understand that noun verb analogies, so they understand their predecessors and it's important for us to understand them so that we can have more dialogue. - Okay, so how do you get along when you have expectations for the generation? And as Brenda was saying in the beginning, as an educator, those expectations are just not met. You don't follow the rules, you don't show up on time, you don't turn in your papers, you don't. So how are we going to bridge that divide? - I think we got a name it to tame it. So we got to call it out and make sure everyone understands how these each generation see it. And then I also think we have to kind of ask all of ourselves the question, do you want to be right or do you want to make change? - Okay. - And I think that's especially important for older generations. I gave a presentation earlier in the week and I had a gentleman come up to me afterwards and say, where is the presentation for the gen zeers? Like, this is all these ideas from the gen zeers. For us, but who's telling them what to do? And my response to him was, do you want to be right or do you want to make change? - Got it. I like that. Jean, you end your book, writing about the future of the economy, religion, race, politics, family, and work, what's your hope for future generations? Generations, generations, generations? - I would say a couple of things. So first, I do have a lot of hope for Gen Z remaking the workplace in some ways that are really good that should have happened decades ago, like what? The mental health and wellness piece, I think especially bringing awareness to that, bringing awareness to, hey, we probably shouldn't be killing ourselves to work. We should have some more of that balance. We do need to preserve that mental health and wellness. And maybe we should also cover care for mental health, just like we cover healthcare for physical health to bring those equal. The other thing that gives me hope is a lot of my fellow Gen X moms and others bringing attention to these issues around screens and phones for kids. So bringing forward the idea of no phones during the school day, belt-to-bell, which is really started to sweep the country. And then the next avenue after that is. - Even Demetrius is shaking his head. - Yeah, I mean, this is the thing when it's instituted, even a lot of high school students say this is great. Sometimes they're reluctant at first, but then they're talking to each other at lunch. And they're doing all things, they're playing cards. They're, I went to one school where they were bedazzling things together at lunch. I was like, you got to tell me what that is. It sounds really cool, but they're interacting face-to-face, developing those social skills, which they need to have. - I think we have Jonathan Height to thank for a lot of that and the interest generation. And also what's happening in Australia? - With the banning of social media for kids under 16? - Yeah, exactly. And then the next frontier is, maybe we should not be handing kindergarteners iPads. - Ain't that the truth? (audience applauding) iPads is babysitters. (audience applauding) Jean's book is called Generations and Amanda Schneider's book is Work for What's Next. And all three are available now wherever you buy your books. Melanie has a new book now called, "The Official We Do Not Care Club Handbook." And color, oh, there's a coloring book too. - It's coming, it's coming. (audience laughing) - I want to have coloring book parties all around the U.S. and we're just coloring, talking, forget when we talking about it and talk about something else. (audience laughing) - Thanks to all my guests. I'll see you next time, go well. Thank you. - If you are interested in learning more about how all the generations compare, compete, and connect with one another, get a copy of Jean Twigne's book Generations, the real differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silence and what they mean for America's future. Her research helps us understand how technology is the driving force between generations and explains what we can expect of each other in the future. Scan the QR code right there on your screen to buy the book. You may be surprised what you learn about the different generations. In your own life, a Managed Niders book work for what's next, why workplace culture is failing and how the next generation can fix it, explains how America's outdated norms in the workplace are holding us back and how to move past generational stereotypes to buy a copy of her book, scan the QR code on your screen. Now, Melanie Sanders, New York Times bestseller, the official We Do Not Care Club Handbook, a hot mess guide for women in paramedics, mid-oppos and beyond who are over it. It's available now, scan the QR code on the screen to buy Melanie's book. Our listeners tell us that the podcast is resonating with you and is serving as a bright spot in your day. That means a lot to me. So here's the thing, I would really appreciate it. If you like and subscribe to the Oprah podcast on YouTube or wherever you podcast, it's just a quick tap of the subscribe button. And that way you won't miss an episode in your queue. You don't have to pay anything. I know subscribe usually means you're paying something. With this time, it means you just are notified when there's something new. There are many more to come that we're excited about. So thank you for watching and listening.