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If you have a child at your home who is between the age of 8 to 23 years then you must read on. These are the children who have a very specific thought process. Let us look at some of the statistics on these children, these teenagers will comprise about 30% of the global workforce by the year 2030, it won’t come as a surprise to you that 98% of these teenagers will own a smartphone today. A Study estimates that generation Z (kids aged between 8-23) currently has a buying power of about 44 billion US dollars They also have the power to influence an additional 600 billion US dollars in spending by their parents.

If 98% of these children will have smart phones then it won’t come as a surprise that it is highly likely that you will find them glued to their smartphones. These are also the children who do not wish to take risks, it is also estimated that the attention span that these teenagers have is about eight seconds, that is how long they take to decide if something is worth their time or not, so if you are a parent and you feel that your child does not listen to you then this could be one of the reasons for the same.

Only about 34% of these teenagers feel confident and about 42% consider themselves to be happy, clearly this seems to be a huge amount of stress or strain, it can also mean that their life has some issues (which you may think it is nothing, but to them it is a lot) which does not allow them to be happy. In fact 46% of these teenagers feel distressed if they can’t use their smart phone for half an hour or less. So as a parent you must try to understand that smart phones are a natural extension to these Teenagers, but this does not mean they need to get addicted to it.

What about their activities apart from academics? these teenagers show a high tendency of staying in hotels when travelling, 92% of these teenagers are obsessed with cars, they plan to own a car (and a pricy one) in the future, amazingly 72% are willing to go without social media for a year if they could behind the sporty wheel, 53% of teenage girls which are females express sadness, almost all the time as compared to 42% in males. If we were to look into the studies which show the most anxious teenagers, then the US the UK and the Filipino teenagers would top the chart. Denmark and Netherlands have the least stressed teenagers.

In terms of patience, it is estimated that 60% of these teenagers when on a telephonic conversation, they are likely to hang up the phone, if a business does not answer their query in 45 seconds as compared to their previous generation. It is also estimated that today’s teenagers have very low empathy and understanding, not only with regards to their family situations, relationships but also about the consequences of their choices, cause they make decisions in such hurry. These teenagers also show a tendency that they will buy from certain brands only, the study concluded that a 60% of today’s teenagers will buy from brands who provide loyalty programs, in fact 74% of these teenagers have a loyalty program membership in the retail industry, so you as a parent you should not be surprised if you find your credit card bill to carry specific brand purchases over the period of time. 42% of these teenagers look for cashback and about the same percentage would like to receive free products as well.

When it comes to buying food, most will not even look at the price, also this generation kids, they are very particular about aesthetics of any product when they are deciding to make a purchase, 70% of these teenagers believe that fashionable design matters than any other generation, and it is estimated that by 2040 that all their purchases would be done online.

Let us talk about video gaming for a moment, 44% of today’s teenager aim that they will use 5G to play more games and about 65% of these teenagers do not have a day which goes without texting anybody. These kids are also influenced very easily, it is estimated that 46% of these teenagers follow at least 10 influencers on social media, so if your child is influenced by let’s say somebody in their friend circle then you as a parent should not be surprised about it. However about 68% of these teenagers would like to read, get evidence to purchase (reviews) or to change their opinion on a given topic, so as a parent rather than explaining them and refuting with them, it would be smart to share a link with them, as you read earlier, that you are only getting 8 seconds of their attention. About 90% of these teenagers use Snapchat, so it’s not a bad idea to generate a login on this app, this will train you as a parent to actually understand how they communicate pictorially, Also if there is a topic of their interest then surprisingly 51% of these teenagers would prefer a face-to-face conversation as compare to a virtual one. These teenagers also watch 2 times more videos on mobile devices, it can be from YouTube or any video streaming social media application or website than any other generation existing today, so to communicate with them on certain topics (which puts them off) it would be smart for a parent to make a YouTube video or simply a video on their mobile and send it to them, these are also the kids who do not like advertisements, about 81% of them skip ads and 51% use ad blockers. Let us look into the data with regards to current teenagers and their thought process regarding money, these kids expect about $60,000 a year in their first job. About 40% of today’s teenagers worry about finding employment however about 37% think people receive more than one job offer, these are the kids who can get bored very easily, hence about 55% of them do not plan to work on a given job for more than three years and if they were to find a job about 63% believe that they would take a job if the same is referred to them via a friend.

In a nutshell the current teenagers can be summed up as kids who can get influenced easily are highly fashionable, creative and innovative however are very impatient but money driven.

Sources – Cognizant, Deloitte, Robert Half via Inc, LinkedIn, Yello, Adrenalin, GCK, Accenture, Crowdtwist

Satyam Khanna