(Winner of the Harvard MUN Essay Contest 2023)
William Yixuan Wu – St. Andrew’s College
Former Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, once said “Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation.”[1] In the contemporary era, young people and activists are given more power than ever in the past. Great youth leaders like Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai are defining the Gen Z generation as courageous young people with visions to reshape the world on the climate, economic, and social fronts. However, in recent years, these activists have been discredited publicly, their reputations tarnished by smear campaigns, and young individuals are starting to turn away from confronting the complexities of the world. Thus, I believe the greatest challenge facing teens in the world today is youth disenfranchisement with civil processes around the world, turning instead to self-expression over collectivist action. Three leading contributors to this phenomenon are the overwhelming complexity of a globalizing world, socio-economic factors, and the modern mass media. Identifying the root causal relations behind the phenomenon may be possible to develop potential solutions.
Alexei Yurchak, a professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, observed that everyone in the Soviet Union knew the systems were failing during its collapse. Still, no one could imagine an alternative to the status quo, and politicians and citizens alike resigned to maintaining the delusional pretense of a functioning society. Over time, a fake reality became normalized to the extent that it became accepted as the reality. He coined this phenomenon “hypernormalization” in his 2005 book, Everything was Forever.[2] As the era of globalization began with the introduction of digital technology and globalized supply chains and commerce, the world became increasingly complex at a frightening speed. Everything we knew about the old-world order seemed to fade away, with countries undergoing regime change, entire trades and professions rendered obsolete by innovations, and livelihoods and power structures often uprooted by civil movements. Young adults no longer contend only with the local and immediate challenges but are forced to compete in a new global academic and employment marketplace. While globalization has brought new opportunities and possibilities, unless we are adequately equipped to comprehend and internalize new complexities, it is simply overwhelming. Rather than investing time and resources for no appreciable personal gain to understand the modern world, many adolescents and young adults instead turn to a simplified view of the world. A “hypernormalized” narrative ran by the “big business interests” and “those who are in charge,” where meaningful change is impossible, and those who try to affect positive social change are labeled as naive or denounced as having a special interest agenda.
The socio-economic benefits of globalization were also not distributed evenly, as the wealthy and powerful entrenched their positions further, creating a greater wealth gap in many parts of the world. The 2022 Russian-Ukrainian War, the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the ongoing China-US trade war, among many other global issues, have contributed to an economic downturn that is also disproportionately hurting young adults. Young adults face the highest level of employment in almost every economy as corporations continue to engage in a race-to-the-bottom mentality in their hiring practices and demand industry-specific experience for entry-level positions.[3] This phenomenon, coupled with the reduction of funding for public education in many countries, created a desperate scenario for Gen Z, who see unaffordable properties and employment marketplaces that devalues them. Economic downturns create discontent and rot away the motivation for young people to engage with the civic process. All around the world, the rise of authoritarian political movements and parties relies on blaming these socio-economic woes on boogeymen and simple solutions, as we’ve seen with the extremist movements in the US, Eastern Europe, and in the reasoning given by Putin for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (“To de-Nazify Ukraine”).[4] Rational political discourse is sidelined for extremist “them or us” and “good or evil” positions, driving away young adults’ engagement with the civil process.
In all this, media and telecommunication platforms should have played a vital role in filtering and disseminating the truths with their professional and journalistic ethics. Instead, the mixture of media sensationalism and corporate greed created a landscape filled with clickbait, fake news, and partisan reporting, blurring the difference between truth and lies. Modern media has brought the horrors of the world in front of young adults, problems which had been previously the domain of specialists and politicians (such as climate change and civil strife) and tasked them with the moral obligation to find solutions. Partisan reporting and conspiracy theory movements capitalize on the historically low trust in media companies as public institutions to sell them simplicity and security. On social media platforms, disinformation echo chambers form to decrease the willingness to engage with other opinions and make compromises, allowing more people to fall into extremist rabbit holes and change the trajectory of their whole life for the worse. The recent rise and fall of media figures such as Alex Jones and Andrew Tate are examples of profiteers that preyed on vulnerable young adults who doesn’t know where to look for factual information to base their decisions. Now more than ever, media professionals must help us interpret and understand the world.
I believe that to fundamentally address the complexities of the world, young adults must be willing to confront it. For that to occur, we must incentivize thoughtful civics behavior. As a part of Gen Z, we need to empower educators and intellectuals the platforms to fight against waves of disinformation and radicalization. We must engage in tough conversations about the limitations of free speech regarding social media companies and reexamine the legal framework to hold them responsible for disseminating misleading falsehoods. With what social mechanics and movements can we hope to achieve these goals? I certainly don’t have the answers today, but I’m not afraid to confront the complexities of the modern world. I hope that as we motivate other young people, we can find a solution together.
Bibliography
Alexei Yurchak. Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More. Princeton University Press, 2005. https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400849109/html?lang=en.
International Labour Organization. “Recovery in Youth Employment Is Still Lagging, Says ILO.” International Labour Organization, August 11, 2022. https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_853078/lang–en/index.htm.
Kofi Annan. “Promoting Youth Leadership.” Kofi Annan Foundation, 2023. https://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/promoting-youth-leadership/why-youth-matters-the-missing-piece-for-peace-and-security/.
Miriam Berger. “Putin Says He Will ‘Denazify’ Ukraine. Here’s the History behind That Claim.” Washington Post, February 25, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/putin-denazify-ukraine/.
[1] Kofi Annan, “Promoting Youth Leadership,” Kofi Annan Foundation, 2023, https://www.kofiannanfoundation.org/promoting-youth-leadership/why-youth-matters-the-missing-piece-for-peace-and-security/.
[2] Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, until It Was No More (Princeton University Press, 2005), https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781400849109/html?lang=en.
[3] International Labour Organization, “Recovery in Youth Employment Is Still Lagging, Says ILO,” International Labour Organization, August 11, 2022, https://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/newsroom/news/WCMS_853078/lang–en/index.htm.
[4] Miriam Berger, “Putin Says He Will ‘Denazify’ Ukraine. Here’s the History behind That Claim.,” Washington Post, February 25, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/24/putin-denazify-ukraine/.
William Wu 
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