Gen Z Should Give Healthcare a Stare

Last I knew, Gen Z showed its disdain for older generations with a dismissive “OK Boomer.” But that was a few years ago, and now, it appears, Gen Z doesn’t even bother with that; instead, there is what has become known as the “Gen Z stare.” You’ve probably seen it, and may have even experienced it. TikTok influence Janaye defines it thusly: “The Gen Z stare is specifically when somebody does not respond or just doesn't have any reaction in a situation where a response is either required or just reasonable.”

You can't do a Gen Z stare better than Wednesday/ Credit: Netflix

It’s been blowing up on social media and the media over the last few days, so it apparently has tapped into the social zeitgeist. It’s often been attributed to customer service interactions, either as a worker receiving an inane request or as a customer facing an undue burden.

You can already see why I link it to healthcare.

It’s off-putting because, as Michael Poulin, an associate psychology professor at the University at Buffalo, told Vox: “People interpret it as social rejection. There is nothing that, as social beings, humans hate more. There’s nothing that stings more than rejection.”

Many attribute the Gen Z stare to Gen Z’s lack of social experience caused by isolation during the pandemic, exacerbated by too much screen time generally. Jess Rauchberg, an assistant professor of communication technologies at Seton Hall University, would tend to agree, telling NBC News: “I think we are starting to really see the long-term effects of constant digital media use, right?”  

Similarly, Tara Well, a professor at Bernard College, told Vox: “It’s sort of almost as though they’re looking at me as though they’re watching a TV show… We don’t see them as dynamic people who are interacting with us, who are full of thoughts and emotions and living, breathing people. If you see people as just ideas or images, you look at them like you’re paging through an old magazine or scrolling on your phone.”

Millennial Jarrod Benson told The Washington Post: “It’s like they’re always watching a video, and they don’t feel like the need to respond. Small talk is painful. We know this. But we do it because it’s socially acceptable and almost socially required, right? But they won’t do it.” Zoomer (as those of Gen Z are known) Jordan MacIsaac speculated to The New York Times: “It almost feels like a resurgence of stranger danger. Like, people just don’t know how to make small talk or interact with people they don’t know.”

On the other hand, TikTok creator Dametrius “Jet” Latham claims: “I don’t think it’s a lack of social skills. I just think we don’t care,” which might be more to the point.

Credit: Dametrius "Jet" Latham/TikTok

ABC News cited some customer service examples that deserved a Gen Z stare: "I've been asked to make somebody's iced tea less cold. I've been asked to give them a cheeseburger without the cheese, but keep the pepper jack of it all." As Zoomer Efe Ahworegba put it: “The Gen Z stare is basically us saying the customer is not always right.”

Ms. Ahworegba doesn’t think a Gen Z stare doesn’t reflect Gen Z’s lack of social skills, but rather: “They just didn’t want to communicate with someone who’s not using their own brain cells.” As some Zoomers say, it is “the look they give people who are being stupid while waiting for them to realize they are being stupid.”

Still, as one commenter on TikTok wrote: “I think it’s hilarious that Gen Z thinks they’re the first generation to ever deal with stupidity or difficult customers, and that’s how they justify the fact that they just disassociate and mindlessly stare into space whenever they are confronted with a difficult or confusing situation, instead of immediately engaging in the situation like every other generation has ever done before them lol.”

Or perhaps this is much ado about nothing. Professor Poulin noted: “To some degree, it’s a comforting myth that all of us who are adults — who’ve gotten beyond the teens and 20s — that we tell ourselves that we were surely better than that.” When it comes to displaying socially acceptable behavior, he says: “This isn’t the first generation to fail.”

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Interestingly, Gen Z is already skeptical of our traditional healthcare system, as well they might be. A new study from Edelman found:

• 45% of adults age 18 to 34 said they've disregarded their health provider's guidance in favor of information from a friend or family member in the past year — a 13-point increase from the previous year.
• 38% of young adults said they've ignored their provider in favor of advice from social media, a 12-point increase from the year before.

"Younger adults have truly created their own health ecosystem with how they're looking for information, who they trust, what they're doing with health information," said Courtney Gray Haupt, Global Health Co-Chair and US Health Chair at Edelman.

One might imagine the Gen Z stare a patient might give to a doctor giving them health advice.

It’s also impacting the Gen Z members who are going into medicine. Grace Akatsu, an MD/PhD student, told Medscape: “I think in the past, a job like being a physician has been viewed more of a calling — an all-consuming entity without much room for anything else. Gen Z sees it more as an important part of your life, but not your entire life.” They added: “It is important — in a respectful and conscientious way — to try to push for change where needed, even if means pushing against the traditional hierarchies that can be baked into medicine,”

And, of course, expectations about technology are baked in. Lena Volpe, MD, a second-year resident in Ob/Gyn at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said: “The way that my coresidents and medical students think about applying technology to medicine…there’s an automatic assumption that tech will make it more thorough.”

Refreshingly, though, BuzzFeed reports that patients’ interactions with Gen Z clinicians are “strangely reassuring” – more informal and collaborative. Seems like the opposite of a Gen Z stare!

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Healthcare is full of things that deserve a Gen Z stare, and not just from Zoomers. We all have our own stories of stupid things we’ve had to go through, whether as patients, clinicians, or administrators. We just keep tolerating them all. The least – the very least! – we should do is to give them a Gen Z stare.