Social Media Has Changed How Gen Z Communicates, Best TV Shows to Binge Watch

So a couple of dogs just attacked Daisy in our yard. She’s bleeding a little. Would y’all take your dogs to the vet?

My sister sent this text to our sister chat just a few days before Christmas. We responded accordingly, offering up advice and otherwise inquiring into her pup’s well-being. (We’re good sisters, after all.)

But over the next two days, I felt as though my emotions were being held hostage as my sis continued to send us details. It wasn’t two dogs, it was just one—and one that was much smaller than her own, for that matter. And it wasn’t the brutal assault that she made it out to be, either. She had initially told us there were multiple bites. Come to find out, it was a single bite on the lip, just several toothmarks. And then there was a whole ordeal with a local shelter coming to pick the stray dog up, only to realize it actually belonged to another family in the neighborhood.

Dog-lovers, fear not. Daisy the dog is doing great now, as is the pup that bit her. But when my sisters and I expressed frustration over the extra drama our sibling had ladled out over the course of two days, she was offended.

“Your insistence on exact details is annoying me,” she said.

But perhaps my sister’s form of communication isn’t entirely her fault. She’s had a smartphone since she was in middle school. She doesn’t remember what life was like before Facebook because she was so young when it came out. And she is the quintessential Gen Z social media user. She, like most of us, doesn’t collect all the information before offering up her opinion:  We see a headline in our feeds. Sometimes we click on it to read the whole article, but more often (especially for 52% of Gen Zers), we skip to the comments section so other people can tell us what it said. And we respond in turn.

It’s a weird way to disseminate knowledge, especially since much of what goes through the comments section consists of opinions, not facts. When you add in the fact that two-thirds of influencers don’t even bother with fact-checking before posting, and my sister’s exaggerated post has plenty of company.

But what can parents do about this lapse in communication?

Well, maybe don’t respond quite as sassily as I did. That’s not going to fix the problem; it’ll just aggravate it. Rather, get into the habit of asking your teenager for more details whenever they share a story they found online. Sure, some of it might seem like drivel—and perhaps it is—but it will also teach them to investigate further before verbally relaying a story as absolute truth.

And parents, you’re also gonna need to pray for some patience. We need to be patient with our Gen Z (and upcoming Gen Alpha) family members and give them a chance to get their words out. And more importantly, we need to do so without the distraction of our own devices. According to Pew Research Center, 46% of teens say their parents are distracted by phones when they’re trying to talk to them.

Not everything teenagers say is going to be revelatory. But we can hardly complain about how social media has ruined our children’s communication skills if we aren’t demonstrating meaningful face-to-face (or even screen-to-screen) interactions by listening to what they have to say.