Should Gen-Z “Touch Some Grass”?

Dear Gen-Z,

Like many of you, I grew up going to the mall. For me, my “mall era” occurred when I was ten years old. Every weekend, I would practically beg my mom to drive me to the Westside Pavillion so I could hang out with my friends and browse the racks of bright pink, glittery clothes.

Two years later, my whole world was shattered. The Westside Pavillion was CLOSING. At that time, I didn’t know what kind of monster would shut it down; the monster turned out to be Google. Walkways that were once filled with frozen yogurt shops, bookstores, and clothing stores were now filled with cubicles, computers, and people trying to get through their 9-5’s. Now as I’ve grown up, I’ve felt the lack of a third place that feels the same as the Westside Pavillion once did. To fill the void that no other location could, social media became my ‘third place’. It presented thousands of communities and subcultures for me to explore, but I soon found myself connecting with people without actually connecting with them. Gen-Z has been limited by the increasing lack of third places post-pandemic, but social media cannot fill the gap left behind from their absence.

Social media allows us young people to build strong community bonds across the country and internationally, but restricts our ability to interact with people in-person, affecting our development. In a New York Times article published in September 2023, Catherine Pearson writes about a scientific study in which researchers found that 12 year olds who constantly monitored their social media accounts experienced changes in the social rewards area of their brains. Social media provides teenagers with instant gratification that third places cannot fully supply, making us less inclined to put in the effort of socializing at a third place.

The term “third places” was coined by Ray Oldenberg in 1999 as a place where strangers can interact with each other, apart from home and work – their first and second places. Spaces like cafes, museums, restaurants, malls, and parks provided this service, allowing us to connect with others outside of our immediate circles. Interactions with strangers can encourage us to build individual and collective identities outside of home and work, which is crucial for our social development. Due to Covid19, working remotely has become much more common, blending first and second places, which has created a deeper need for a third place separate from both. However, these third places have become increasingly more expensive for both producers and users of these spaces in recent years. According to Allie Conti, who writes for The Atlantic, cities have introduced many “ersatz third places”, that are simply too overpriced for the average person to afford, or the intention is to move people in and out quickly.

The impact that social media has on Gen-Z has already been noticed, as scientists are seeing shifts in brain chemistry in teenagers, causing us to be “particularly drawn to these platforms and more susceptible to potential pitfalls” (Pearson, NYT). This begs a bigger question of, if third places were to return, could we steer ourselves away from our online communities to explore in-person opportunities presented by these third places? According to the American Community Life Survey, only 25% of people living in high amenity access areas interact with strangers at least once a week (Conti, The Atlantic). Our generation has become wrapped up in social media and it does not appear that we will untangle ourselves from it any time soon, which must change before we reach a point of no return.

Sincerely,

A fellow Gen-Zer