As a member of Gen Z, I carry a deep concern for my generation, and I believe you should, too.

Since our infancy, we’ve been labeled many things: Gen Z, “screenagers,” digital natives, and, most troubling of all, the loneliest generation. Recent data shows that 73% of Gen Z report feeling alone sometimes or always. Loneliness is part of the human condition. But when nearly three-quarters of a generation report feeling persistently alone, we are not talking about normal adolescence. We are talking about a pattern.

I have lived the paradox of growing up constantly connected and profoundly isolated. I have felt what it is like to scroll for hours, surrounded by images of other people’s lives, while feeling increasingly distant from my own. I have felt the pressure to curate, to compare, to measure myself against bodies, lifestyles, and achievements filtered through an algorithm that decides what I see and how often I see it.

This is not abstract. It is daily life.