With the recent rise of social media trends such as “What are we wearing to WWIII” and “Get ready with me to go to war,” Gen Z is gaining a bad rep for being seemingly indifferent to global events. However, maybe this is all a coverup for the true fear Gen Z garners when it comes to politics and global events. In this video, The Chronicle attempts to explore how students are affected by global events.

     Due to the rise of social media, news spreads fast, and news of all opinions. More people than ever are getting their news from platforms like TikTok. This means that people are quickly informed of things, but they are also quickly misinformed. Information is coming from all angles at Gen Z, leading them to face severe stress and anxiety about global events.

     To add on to this stress and anxiety, because so much of the news on these platforms is so often fake, people are made to have unnecessary fears. People are flooded with information from all sides to an overwhelming extent. 

     “No one likes to listen to the other side, they just think they’re right,” said Senior Simi Damani. This can lead people like Damani to feel lost and polarized, so much so that when combined with other stressors like school, Gen Z can’t handle it. 

     This is why Gen Z has a tendency to pretend to be unaffected by politics. “Teens cope by not coping,” said US Counselor Brian Wiley. Gen Z is so aware that there is bad going on in the world, but sometimes it becomes so overwhelming it’s easier to not watch those videos and stray away from politics altogether. So when major events become so serious that they are forced to become involved, they sometimes use humor to cope, which is evident in the tiktoks which begin this video.