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So Gen Z need special coaching to make actual phone calls. Get a grip!
Only this year, it's even more onerous than usual for teachers. Because now they're having to coach kids who fail to make the required grades for their chosen universities on how to make phonecalls during Clearing.
Despite Gen Z being the 'most online' generation so far – and God help us when it's the turn of Gen Alpha… – this current cohort of wannabe adults are so frightened of making an actual real-life phonecall to Ucas, the higher education admissions service that helps universities fill up remaining spaces on courses, that schools are having to offer workshops on how to do it.
According to reports, schools have been holding 'basic phone skills' sessions – including mock interviews and calls – to help teenagers navigate the process.
It comes after research shows Gen Z relies on texting or sending Voice Notes, rather than having actual conversations on the phone – and almost a quarter of 18 to 34-year-olds admit to never picking up calls.
What will those Ucas-friendly workshops entail? How to say 'hello' rather than 'hbu'? 'I'm calling to discuss my options' instead of 'hey, u up?' 'I'd like to negotiate my offer' to replace 'wdym'?
I know, I know, I sound like Mother Time; some ancient crone sitting in the corner and bemoaning 'the yoof of today'. But I am despairing about the younger generation's lack of... well, get-up-and-go, I have to admit. I've witnessed it myself – in the workplace.
I've sat at the end of a desk at a previous newspaper and listened to a senior editor ask a younger member of staff to phone someone to check something, to ask for a quote, or to cold-call someone about a story. I've heard bosses bark orders at juniors to contact the Met Police or the Home Office or a minister's SpAd. And then seen them not do it.
I've witnessed them pretend they tried but 'couldn't get through' (when in fact, they didn't even pick up the handset). And I've seen people tap away at a text message to a contact, without once opening their mouth to try in person.
I can't help but notice how stark the difference has become. When I was a cub reporter (cue the quote from the old lady on the Titanic: 'It's been 84 years' etc), we would scramble to 'hit the phones'. We would even walk, quite brazenly, into a pub or a community centre IRL, in search of a story to fill a page.
It wasn't just part of the job, it was what set you apart from the rest. You were told to do it – but you also wanted to do it; to get ahead, because you were hungry to succeed – or because, quite simply: if you didn't, someone else would. And it wasn't that you weren't anxious or shy – no generation changes that quickly – but you simply sucked it up and got on with it, because you had to.
And while I'm not with those millennials, Gen Xers or boomers that lambast younger people for having mental health problems, or for suffering from anxiety (just look at the world they're growing up in, filled with war, climate crisis and Donald Trump), I think that when it comes to your own life, ambition and career or educational successes, sometimes you just have to get a goddamn grip and pick up the phone. It's really (whisper it) not that hard.
Apparently, though, it is. One study found that almost two-thirds of people in the entire UK have experienced phone fear – or 'telephohobia'. So, what's really going on?
Personally, I think it's a result of our increasingly 'disconnected-connected' lives; the fact that we have 500 'friends' or 'followers' on Instagram, but fewer than a handful of people to call on in a crisis, or to share good news. In 2014, Britain was dubbed the loneliness capital of Europe.
And when we sit at home, counting 'likes' and giving 'hearts' or 'thumbs up' to our friends, rather than taking the time to call them and hear their voices, it makes us feel more isolated than ever. Young people are more chronically online than anyone, so it's no wonder they're first in the anxiety queue. They're also, pure and simply, out of practice. They never do it. Is it any wonder that has a knock-on effect on dealing with the fallout from their A-levels?
I also wonder if, for young people, it's become all too easy to say they can't do something – to fear it; to make it loom large – and to thereby twist it out of all proportion. If you don't try (and pretend that it's because you 'can't') then you take control of the potential rejection. You can't 'fail' what you didn't even try for.
But while young people are being coached in how to talk to adults, I've noticed a backlash to constant, text-heavy communication; at least in my generation. My friend Roz has stopped sending Voice Notes and weekly WhatsApp check-ins and has switched to impromptu calls.
I'll admit: the first time she called me – out of the blue, without me expecting it – I automatically assumed something was wrong. That's how accustomed we've all become to avoiding each other.
I'm worried about this frightened generation of kids – and while I groan at the fact that they need workshops at all, I just hope it turns the tide and makes them realise something important: that they can do it, and do it well.
Because that's what it will take: it's not about Gen Z becoming braver, but about helping them be less comfortable with failure. It's about opening their eyes to the possibility of success.
Gen Z don't have to learn how to fail. They're good at dealing with that: too good. They need to learn how to win.
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