Generationality is not simply a matter of age. It is a social and historical condition through which a generation is formed by the circumstances of its time. When historical epochs undergo profound change and paradigms shift, the conditions in which individuals are socialized also change. Economic structures, technological systems, cultural expectations, institutions, family relations and forms of communication are transformed, and with them the ways in which generations come to understand themselves and the world around them. A generation, therefore, is not merely a birth cohort passing through chronological time. It is constituted through shared encounters with historical transformation.

Generation Z, broadly understood as those born from the late 1990s to the early 2010s, has come of age at a particularly consequential historical moment. It has experienced childhood and adolescence amid rapid digitalization, smartphones, social media, algorithmic communication, online education, economic uncertainty, globalization and changing patterns of family and social life. These developments have not merely provided young people with new tools. They have altered the very environment in which identity, relationships, aspirations and social consciousness are formed. The significance of Generation Z therefore lies less in its chronological location than in the historical conditions that have shaped its consciousness.

Karl Mannheim’s concept of generational consciousness offers an important way of understanding this phenomenon. Mannheim argued that people who pass through formative years under similar historical circumstances may acquire common orientations and ways of interpreting the social world. What creates a generation, therefore, is not age alone but a shared location within history. Generation Z has occupied such a location within a world where the speed of technological and social change has become itself a defining experience. Strauss and Howe’s generational theory, although developed in a different conceptual context and not specifically for Generation Z, also draws attention to the relationship between generational experience and broader historical change. Such theories are useful not as complete explanations but as frameworks for recognizing that generations are made by history as much as history is made by generations.

The distinctive condition of Generation Z becomes clearer when we examine the weakening of established pathways into adulthood. Earlier generations could often imagine a relatively recognizable sequence of life: education, employment, economic independence, marriage, home and family. These pathways were never universal and were always shaped by class, gender, geography and social inequality, but they nevertheless provided a broadly intelligible map. For many young people today, that map has become uncertain. Education is more competitive, employment more precarious, housing more expensive and intimate relationships more individualized. Technological disruption continuously alters the nature of work, while globalization expands possibilities even........

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