Latest news with #Zoomers
Yahoo
17 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
My girlfriend loves me more than I love her. Should I settle at 27, or move on?
Welcome back to 'Ask Amy & T.J.' In this week's column, Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes learn what a Zoomer is — and share some lessons learned in their 20s. We want to hear your questions about being newly single. When is it OK to bring a date around friends who knew your ex? Or post about your new partner on social media? If you have a question for Amy and T.J. about dipping your toes back into the dating pool, email it to askamyandtj@ If you want to hear more from our advice columnists, check out their podcast. Amy and T.J., I realize I might sound like a jerk, but here's my question: Should I be with someone who's really into me if I don't want them as much back? Or should I wait to find someone I'd really like to be with, but will have to work to win over? I'm a 27-year-old Zoomer deciding whether to settle for my current partner or start over and keep looking. What should I do?Gut reaction T.J. Holmes: What's that sound like? Amy Robach: It sounds like he's just not that into his partner! On further thought … AR: By the time I was 27, I'd been married for four years. TJH: Me too. We both got married at 23. AR: And we shouldn't have! TJH: And we shouldn't have! It's not that you can't have your ish together at age 27. But for many people at that age, you haven't necessarily figured out who you want to be yet. So how are you going to be ready to know what you want in a partner long-term? It isn't always a matter of age, though; it's a matter of where you are now and whether you can grow from there. Because by the time you're 34, you might not be the same person you are now. Your partner may not be either — by then they may not like you! AR: I also think that 27 is too young to settle. I know when you're 27, you feel like you've lived so much life — I did when I was 27; I thought I had figured most of it out. But you haven't. And you can't have. So if you aren't already in a relationship where you are so excited about taking the next step with that person, you should wait until you find that person. You've got plenty of time at 27. On the other hand, I do think that your generation — I didn't know you were called Zoomers — is far more picky, and that's not a bad thing. But there is no such thing as a perfect mate. You're never going to find the perfect person. What you want is to find the person who you love and respect enough that you will want to grow with them and be willing to change and evolve with them. You want to find the right person to be on that journey with you, but it's not going to be the perfect person. TJH: It's all about realistic vs. idealistic. A lot of people have this idea — we see it in Love Island USA — this fantasy of someone who makes their heart flutter, who's going to be their Prince or Princess Charming. It's OK to have standards, but if you get too attached to this idealistic expectation, now, any time you date someone, if they're not perfect, you think, 'I shouldn't settle for less.' Settling for less is not the same as being realistic about what you really want in a relationship. Don't let perfect get in the way of good. And sometimes what you have is perfectly good. So, before you make a decision, maybe ask yourself whether you want to throw away the relationship you have to try to get the perfect one. Maybe you can grow to be head over heels? If this woman cares about you that much, maybe eventually you'll realize that you have something special? AR: I think that might be possible. And it's why you need to be honest with your partner. Explain that you're not where they are emotionally yet, but you're not ready to end things. Ask for patience, but make it clear that you can't promise a ring at the end of this. And honestly, your partner might say 'bye' when you come clean. But I think anyone you're dating should get that opportunity to know where your head is and make a decision for themselves. It's not just you making this decision; your partner is in this relationship too. The final word TJH: The key word, though, is settle. Any time you insert that into a sentence regarding the person you're with, I think that's a wrap. That's done, it's over. You can think about being realistic vs. idealistic. But the word 'settle' is a big problem. AR: You should never settle. You can talk to your partner honestly about seeing if your feelings might grow. But don't settle. Because it might just feel like 'settling' right now, early on in the relationship. But if you stay together and you really feel like you're settling, it will turn into resentment and full-blown anger and depression. It can lead to a lot of really negative things. If your relationship is starting at settling, it's not going to end well.
Buzz Feed
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Gen Z Is Being Weird About Answering The Phone, And Other Things The Internet Talked About This Week
What you're about to read is an issue of the Only Good Internet newsletter, which brings you the funniest, weirdest, and most interesting content from around the internet, no doomscrolling required. Subscribe here and you'll get the web's best stuff in your inbox every week! BuzzFeed Welcome to Only Good Internet, where I give you a little bit of good internet content, as a treat. I want to talk to my fellow millennials for a bit, here (Gen X, you too). Because I came across this tweet this week: …That Gen Z answers the phone and doesn't say anything. Apparently, this is a thing: Zoomers will answer the phone and, instead of saying 'hello,' they'll wait there silently for the person calling to speak first. Now, as a millennial, my first thought was, 'What the f***?' But after reading some replies from Gen Z, it started to make more sense…a lot of them are concerned about spam calls (which, let's be honest, are like 90% of the calls we get these days) and how the bot on the other end is waiting for you to say 'hello' so that it knows there's a real person at this phone number, and it can therefore keep spam-calling you. There were also some concerns from Zoomers about AI stealing your voice with these calls and using it to scam your relatives. Obviously, the only way to fight back is to use a voice changer — you know, like in Scream — to answer your calls. Throw off the bots, terrify your friends, win-win. This is the cutest dang thing I've seen in a while: 'Sir, there's a situation on platform 2!' 'Don't tell me…' u/liberty4now / Via 'Yes, sir, it's a Level 5.' I always like to finish every week by leaving you with a little something that I can't get out of my head. This week, it's all about this thought:
New York Post
21-07-2025
- General
- New York Post
‘I can hear their breathing:' Employers enraged over Gen Z's rude phone etiquette
The sound of silence? Zoomers have been infuriating older generations with their seemingly rude behavior, from poor table manners to refusing to greet customers. Now, Generation La-Z is being called out for another faux pas: not saying 'hello' when they answer the phone. That's right, in a backwards-seeming trend that's baffling older generations, Zoomers are putting the onus on the person who called to initiate conversation like a game of telephone chicken. Advertisement This telephone cold shoulder came to light via a recruiter who posted on X earlier this month, 'something I've noticed about Gen Z specifically is that a lot of them answer the phone and don't say anything.' 'The reason to wait in silence is because there are a lot of robocall scams now that wait to hear if there's a voice there,' confessed one Zoomer. Shotmedia – 'Like I can hear their breathing and the background noise, but they wait for you to say hello first,' they explained. Advertisement Worst of all, this was not a cold call, but rather a prearranged call made at a time the recipient themselves had chosen — and on a number she had sent them so they'd know she'd be on the line. This telephone faux pas phenomenon isn't just anecdotal, either. A YouGov poll taken last year found that one in four Brits aged between 18 and 24 think it is ok to answer a phone call without any form of greeting. Some older generations found this habit downright rude. Only 27% of people aged between 25 and 34 feel it was ok to voice ghost, while just 14% among those over 45 found the practice acceptable. Experts claim that Gen Zers' telephone ghosting is a result of the fact that they didn't grow up with a landline like their Gen X and millennial brethren. Milan Lipowski – Advertisement 'We all say hello if we are picking up the phone. The same as if you were answering the door,' vented one millennial on a Reddit thread on the topic. 'It's not just that it's considered polite, but in the case of the phone, it is to signify you are present and have answered the phone. The person on the other end can't see you, so having a vocal indication is helpful.' Employers have cited poor phone manners as one of several reasons Zoomers flounder at the office, wrote Pilita Clark in a piece for the Financial Times. It's gotten so bad that Mary Jane Copps, founder of a Canadian communication consultancy called The Phone Lady, claims that companies pay her up to $3,100 to train phone-illiterate zoomers. Advertisement So why the radio, er, phone silence? Clark speculated that, unlike prior generations, zoomers — who famously prefer messaging to calling — find phone use unnerving because they grew up without a landline. Therefore, they didn't get the same telephone etiquette tutorial that their phone-broken millennial and Gen X brethren received from their parents growing up. 'Rather than start the conversation and then discover it is a recorded message or scam, they wait to hear who or what is calling them before they respond,' she said. This is perhaps prudent given the rise of spoofing scams, in which AI-powered bots hijack people's voice snippets so they can pose as them in order to steal money from their loved ones. Many Gen Zers copped to this reason with one Redditor writing, 'The reason to wait in silence is because there are a lot of robocall scams now that wait to hear if there's a voice there.' Another reason — somewhat paradoxically — is that some Gen Zers think it's rude to dial people. Copps recalled a young man at one of her workshops declaring, 'You know, Mary Jane, if somebody calls me out of the blue, what that says to me is they value their time more than my time, and I am not going to talk to them.'
News.com.au
20-07-2025
- General
- News.com.au
Gen Z thinks you're ‘old' at this insultingly early age
A survey by US education firm Edubirdie — which polled 2000 Gen Z and young Millennials, defined as those born in the late '90s and early 2000s — dared to ask the younger generations the question, 'When does old age really start?' For 22 per cent of Gen Zers, they think that by the time you've reached 35, you're toast. An additional 26 per cent believe that 40 is the true marker of elderliness. Thus, almost half of Gen Z thinks that anything over the age of 40 is old. Meanwhile, only a quarter of people tend to go grey under 40. Admittedly, a sizeable 31 per cent portion of Gen Z respondents reportedly believe that oldness sets in at 60, making for a more conventional vision of senility. This disproportionately large percentage of Zoomers who believe old age begins at 35 is likely due to a generational fixation on youth, fast-paced trends and appearance, some say. 'I feel like Gen Zers tie a lot of their identity to their youth and look at millennials as the older wise men, and wise women. And, while I do appreciate that, I'm also just, like, we're only, like, five years from where you are,' Mike Mancusi, a 34-year-old comedian who created a recent viral TikTok on the Gen Z and Millennial divide, recently told Newsweek. 'I'm sure every single generation feels this way about the younger generation. I seriously doubt this is a unique generational relationship,' he said. In a Reddit thread on the subject, the generations battled it out to decide whether or not the 22 per cent of Gen Zers are simply living life day-by-day, with no consideration for their own — apparently impending ageing — or if there's a point to the polled pandemonium. 'Hey Gen Z. Millennial here with a friendly reminder that you'll be old before you even know it,' warned a decidedly bitter commenter. 'They say this now until it's time for them to be in their 30s, and the next generation calls them old at that age,' agreed another. While some Zoomer Redditors didn't mince their words, others offered respectful words to the wise about their elders. '30 is old. 30 is basically half your life,' reasoned one reply — although, logically speaking, that seems like it would make 30 middle-aged. While a significant portion of surveyed Gen Zers thought that people in their 30s were old, others curiously called out 27 as an 'old' age marker. 'I had a Zoomer intern last summer call a 27-year-old 'old'… Perspective is weird,' reflected an older Millennial. 'I'm 22, and I see anyone older than like 27 as old,' another commenter wrote. 'I think it's hard to argue that 35 is 'old' but by that age, you're certainly not young,' one thorough thinker explained. 'It's definitely a little stifling to be in a place with a younger crowd and see 35+ adults trying to party with all the people in their early 20s. Like I expect to be married with children by the time I'm 35, and even if I'm not, I understand that it's time for me to move on from the activities I did in my 20s.' As more and more Gen Zers enter the workforce and 'adult life,' some expect that they'll change their minds about the mid-30s cut-off for youth. After all, the infamously sober generation is consuming more alcohol than ever before, leaving behind their 'grandma core' ways, so perhaps anything could happen — there may be hope yet for all of the greying Millennials out there.
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The real reason everyone's so mad over the Gen Z stare
According to many Zoomers, concerning reports of a 'Gen Z stare' may be overblown. If it exists, they say, it's simply a response to the idiocy of their elders. Somehow, though, the concept — recently articulated on TikTok — gained instant recognition from millennials, Gen X, and boomers, who describe it as a blank, if not worried, look as a response to a direct question or interaction. Sometimes, it can be a lack of any greeting or reply from Zoomers in customer service specifically. Further reports point to a potentially related trend, where the group born between 1997 and 2012 don't say hi when they pick up the phone. Any sweeping generational generalization — the millennial 'failure to launch,' the Gen X 'slacker' mentality, boomers ruining everything — has a way of galvanizing old, would-be foes and bringing them together for a universal tut-tut moment. Now, it's a new generation's turn in the barrel, and we're hearing about their lack of bar tabs, their surprising interest in religion, their tendency to fall for online scams, and their love of baggy pants. Few things unite people as easily as a common point of complaint and judgment. But the 'stare' dogpile is also a reflection of the social skills we value and how we learned to value them; concerns that go beyond eye contact and active listening. In examining our hangups and the backlash, it becomes clear that the Gen Z stare is actually as much about Zoomers as it is the people who are frustrated by them. Does the Gen Z stare exist? The most difficult thing about the Gen Z stare is finding Zoomers who will actually admit — on record — to doing it. In speaking to a few Gen Z people, the main response I got was that they didn't believe that they or any of their friends were guilty of committing the Gen Z stare. Sam Delgado, a freelance journalist and former Vox fellow, does not relate to giving what she understands to be 'deadpan stare during conversations.' 'I was a little confused at first because I hadn't heard of it before or didn't immediately understand,' Delgado says. 'And while my other Gen Z friends aren't as chatty as I am, I've never seen any of them do this stare.' Kat Swank, a young person born in 1997 — the Gen Z cutoff — who says she does not fix upon people with a lightless gaze, was also skeptical. 'My TikTok For You Page is certainly telling me that it's real,' Swank tells Vox. 'But I don't think I've ever really encountered it, though.' Obviously, asking people whether they do an embarrassing thing is not going to elicit a rush of admissions. Psychology experts I spoke to said that while there's obviously no peer-reviewed research on the origins of the stare or its intent, they believe that at least some Gen Z starers are unaware that they're doing it. There's also reason to believe that the way young people look at older people now has plenty in common with past generations. Michael Poulin, an associate psychology professor at the University at Buffalo researches how people respond to adversity, and says that he's seen 'tons' of Gen Z stares. He's very familiar with the vacant gaze and felt its heavy void first hand. But he raises the point that part of being a college professor is looking around the room into a sea of young adults who would rather be somewhere else. Since Poulin has been teaching, and perhaps since time immemorial, students, regardless of generation, have given him that blinkless gaze. Poulin, who says he's seen stares from millennial students in the past, raises the point that the Gen Z stare might not be specific to Gen Z but rather a manifestation of the tradition of older adults complaining about the newest, youngest adults. It's not unlike the way some of our parents told us to look people in the eye and respond to them in full sentences, or the way some of us were reminded not to slouch at the dinner table, or to greet people with firm handshakes. Clearly, even in the distant past, some of us weren't making sufficient eye contact, were being too curt, slumped and ruining our posture, and doling out flimsy shakes to adults around us. 'To some degree, it's a comforting myth that all of us who are adults — who've gotten beyond the teens and 20s — that we tell ourselves that we were surely better than that,' Poulin says, asserting that older adult complaining about Gen Z probably have a few interactions in their younger years that were also complained about. 'This isn't the first generation to fail' at behaving like a responsive adult. Still, Poulin says, 'I would be willing to speculate that it may be a little worse for Gen Z,' noting that complaining about Gen Z en masse on social media is a sort of new phenomenon. Bemoaning how annoying young people are used to be kept in smaller social circles like after church or at soccer practices or lunches, but now it's all online, documented and magnified with the possibility of going viral. That's probably an issue millennials, at least, can relate to. The Gen Z stare isn't totally made up One of the reasons why Gen Z might not be totally aware of their stare might be the same reason older generations are so sensitive to it: an unavoidable difference in number and types of human interactions. Older adults have years or even decades of social experiences, most of which notably came before the pandemic lockdowns cut us off from one another and changed how we interact. Many also remember a pre-internet age of interaction, another sea change in the way that people relate to one another. For millennials and older, having learned the social skills to navigate a wider variety of in-person dealings, it can feel abrupt, even jarring, to encounter someone without them. While it's true that possibly every generation possesses social behavior that, in some way or another, irked previous ones, there may be factors at play as to why Gen Z's has manifested itself in a vacant glance. It all comes back to those two big shifts: the internet and the pandemic. 'It's sort of almost as though they're looking at me as though they're watching a TV show,' says Tara Well, a professor at Barnard College. Well's research is primarily in social perception, cognition, and self-awareness. Like Poulin, she has seen the Gen Z stare coming from some of her students. If your social interactions are largely dependent on scrolling through an endless amount of faces or staring into a lens, it might affect the way you interact with humans face-to-face. Well explained to me that the stare has made her think about the idea of 'self-objectification' a concept in psychology where people see themselves as an object or solely by their physical appearances, and begin to see other people as objects and images. 'We don't see them as dynamic people who are interacting with us, who are full of thoughts and emotions and living, breathing people,' Well tells Vox. 'If you see people as just ideas or images, you look at them like you're paging through an old magazine or scrolling on your phone.' It's not difficult to see a connection between social media and self-objectification. If your social interactions are largely dependent on scrolling through an endless amount of faces or staring into a lens, it might affect the way you interact with humans face-to-face. On social media everyone just bleeds into an endless swipe if they haven't captured your attention. On top of that, Gen Z is the first generation to grow up with fully built out iterations of Instagram, TikTok, and other social media platforms. They also have largely experienced so many customer-facing interactions — ordering a pizza, speaking to customer service rep, buying movie tickets — as automated. Of course, technological developments weren't the only thing happening during Gen Zers' time in high school and college. Many were also navigating those crucial years for social development during the pandemic, when life and school was shut down and held virtually. Swank, the millennial-Gen Z cusper, said that during her high school years, she had full access to Snapchat, Facebook, and Instagram ('the old Instagram where you're putting the worst photo you've ever seen of yourself with a sepia filter'). At the time, she didn't yet have TikTok and those social media platforms hadn't unspooled their now-sophisticated algorithms into the apps. But her younger peers did. As a zillennial, she suspects she avoided the worst: access to TikTok combined with the pandemic. All that and 'your social life is all fully all online? I can only kind of imagine, like, where your social skills kind of go from there,' Swank says. 'Online, you can just stop engaging with someone, and you don't need to talk to them — I can totally see that bleeding into real life.' While many of us had our social lives affected by lockdowns (and all have access to social media), Gen Z is the only generation who didn't get to experience what adult social life felt like before it. Why the Gen Z stare is so off-putting Part of what Well studies is how humans react to each other. She looks into the small things, like how we modulate our voice when we talk to someone or how we react to small cues — the beginning of a smile, the small raise of an eyebrow, the end of a laugh, etc. These details help us decipher an interaction, to keep a good conversation going or end one that's run its course. The Gen Z stare seems like the antithesis to these things. The person giving the stare may not know or want to reciprocate these cues; they may not have the practice or knowledge to help their conversational partner. At the same time, the person they're staring at has nothing to work with. That may explain why people may find the stare so irksome, regardless of whether or not the starer's intention. 'People interpret it as social rejection,' Poulin, the professor at Buffalo, told me. 'There is nothing that, as social beings, humans hate more. There's nothing that stings more than rejection.' If there's any solace for those feeling the frustration, or for Gen Z tired out of the discourse, it's that there that younger generation will likely give up its signature stare. 'Gen Z will grow out of it because people are going to keep having in person interactions,' Poulin says, noting that it might not be at the same rate as older generations who grew up with face-to-face interactions. 'They will have more in person interactions, and they will experience consequences of engaging versus not engaging.' When they do, older generations will probably find something else to complain about. Solve the daily Crossword
