7 Things People Often Get Wrong About Gen Z

Gen Z—which, according to the Pew Research Center, encompasses everyone born between 1997 and 2012—often gets a bad rap. But there’s more to this generation than meets the eye. Below, we debunk some common steoreotypes about Gen Z, as adapted from an episode of Misconceptions on YouTube.

1. Misconception: Gen Z means “kids.”
2. Misconception: Gen Z is full of slacktivists.
3. Misconception: Gen Z is aging like milk.
4. Misconception: Gen Z isn’t interested in home ownership.
5. Misconception: Gen Z also isn’t interested in car ownership or driving.
6. Misconception: Gen Z doesn’t cook.
7. Misconception: Gen Z is tech-savvy. 

Misconception: Gen Z means “kids.”

These days, Generation Z is shorthand for “kids these days.” Like Millennial in the 2010s and Gen X in the ‘90s, the label is used to refer to college students, teens, and the general youth of society in the 2020s. But while these groups definitely fall under the Gen Z umbrella, not every member of the generation is a young adult. In 2025, the oldest Zoomers turn 28. That means they’ve been out of undergraduate school for several years and are officially in their late twenties staring down the barrel of their thirties. 

Misconception: Gen Z is full of slacktivists.

Like pretty much every generation once it reaches its teen years, Gen Z has attracted lots of negative stereotypes. And as was the case in the past, most of those stereotypes are overblown. Today’s young adults have a reputation for being slacktivists—meaning they do most of their activism on social media instead of effecting change in the real world. 

But the data tells a different story. According to research from Abacus Cooperative, members of Generation Z made an average of 5.3 charitable donations in 2022, compared to 4.8 from Millennials and 4.7 from Gen Xers; this is despite them having 86 percent less buying power than Baby Boomers did in their twenties. 

Young people support their favorite causes in other ways as well. A survey by the British Heart Foundation found that Zoomers in the UK were more likely to volunteer their time than any other age group. They’re also more likely to show up at the voting booth than stereotypes suggest. It’s true that Generation Z makes up a small percentage of voters relative to their total numbers, but their turnout is impressive compared to previous generations at their age. U.S. Census data shows that 28.4 percent of eligible voters between 18 and 24 cast ballots in the 2022 midterms—that’s 5 percent higher than the midterm turnout for both Millennials and Gen Xers when they were the same age.

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Misconception: Gen Z is aging like milk.

Though Gen Z is still comfortably in their twenties, the generation has been called out for looking noticeably older. This idea took off in early 2024, when hundreds of thousands of TikTok users posted their unfiltered faces and bravely asked “how old do I look?” as part of a viral trend. After analyzing the data, the internet concluded that Gen Z is aging like milk. 

There are many theories behind the perceived phenomenon, from vaping, to stress, to buccal fat removal. But for the most part, the sense that today’s young people look older than past generations did at their age is likely an illusion. 

Many Zoomers grew up on social media, where face filters are prevalent and youth and beauty are rewarded by algorithms. After spending so much time staring at digitally-smoothed skin, a bare, unaltered face shared as part of a TikTok trend can look abnormal by comparison. 

Misconception: Gen Z isn’t interested in home ownership.

Just 30 percent of 26-year-olds owned a home in 2023, which is less than the rates for Millennials, Gen Xers, and Baby Boomers at the same age. There’s a misconception that Generation Z has less interest in buying a home than previous generations. In light of a 2023 survey on young people and homeownership, outlets declared that “Gen Z don't see home ownership in their future,” implying that the choice is up to them. 

But when you dig into the results, the story becomes more complicated. When explaining their answers, young respondents cited high property costs and lack of affordability as the main reasons they don’t see homeownership as a realistic goal. These pessimistic feelings are based on facts. Average home prices rose 6.6 percent from 2023 to 2024, and interest rates still remain prohibitively high for many.

Misconception: Gen Z also isn’t interested in car ownership or driving.

There’s a similar misconception around Gen Z and driving. In 2020, just 25 percent of 16-year-olds had their driver’s license compared to 43 percent in 1997. The number of licensed drivers were also much lower among 20 to 25-year-olds that year compared to Millennials at that age. 

Gen Zers have many good reasons for rejecting car culture, such as concerns for the environment and their own personal safety. But it would be wrong to assume that all teens and young adults who don’t drive do so by choice. Money is one of the main factors keeping Zoomers off the road, with gas, insurance, and cars themselves all costing more than they did in the ‘90s, even accounting for inflation. Couple that with lagging salaries and it’s no surprise that so many young people are opting to walk or take public transit—at least in the parts of the country where that’s possible. 

Misconception: Gen Z doesn’t cook.

Food delivery apps exploded during the pandemic, and some people never dropped the habit. Like Millennials before them, Gen Z is stereotyped as being lazy and bad with money, and they’re most closely associated with these services. Some people are more willing to pay a premium to have all their meals delivered, but that’s not the average Zoomer. Even if they want to treat themselves, most young people can’t afford to do so on a regular basis. 

A 2023 Bank of America survey found that nearly three fourths of Gen Zers had to adjust their spending habits to cope with inflation. According to a 2023 survey from Home Run Inn, the average member of the generation cooks at home about six days out of the week. While cost is a big contributor to that number, their number one motive for cooking at home more often is health.

Misconception: Gen Z is tech-savvy. 

Gen Z was the first generation raised entirely online. Smartphones and social media have been woven into their lives since adolescence, so many people assume they’re the most tech-savvy group of all. But as more Zoomers enter the workforce, their Millennial and Gen X supervisors are learning that isn’t necessarily the case. Anecdotal evidence indicates that this new generation of workers has trouble with basic tech tasks, such as using a printer or formatting a Word document. 

Their reputation as digital natives may hurt them in the long run. As the internet became more integrated into everyday life, computer classes became less common in schools. In a 2023 survey, 56 percent of respondents ages 18 to 26 reported receiving little to no digital education. Many educators assumed the classes were redundant in an increasingly high-tech world. But as new graduates are finding out, being able to navigate user-friendly phone apps doesn’t necessarily translate to computer literacy. Meanwhile, Millennials are still benefitting from the coding skills they learned from Neopets and Myspace.