An old song sung to children back in the early 2000s said, “O’ be careful little eyes what you see,” but, has Gen-Z seen too much at a young age? 

Generation Z (or Gen-Z) labels those born from 1996 to 2012. In the lives of Gen-Z members, they have and continue to experience life changing events. 

“9/11 [happened.] Certainly, most of the kids were fairly young, you know, kindergarten, first grade and younger… That was a pretty big event,” said history teacher Steve Reitman. When terrorists took over planes and struck the Pentagon and the Twin Towers and this resulted in the death of 2,977 people with many others hurt. This sent a shock wave across the nation. 9/11 was just the beginning of many more attacks on U.S soil.

In the years after 9/11, children in their schools would sit together and watch the destruction of 9/11. At young ages, children were forced to watch people jump out of windows and listen to phone calls between loved ones who were saying goodbye. After watching these events from a small age, the children of Gen-Z grew numb to death.  

Later in their lives, Gen-Z experienced “the inauguration of Barack Obama … [which] was an absolutely huge [moment]. I remember it well, not only because it was in Chicago, you know, and being in Grant Park…There you could see people there were black Americans that were older that were weeping. That said that they would never have thought that in their entire lifetimes they would see someone, who was like them, in the Oval Office. That gave people a lot of hope for the future, and a lot of belief that people have, you know, minorities could be able to take those high offices and do those amazing things, I think it was a really groundbreaking time,” said Reitman. 

Additionally, some Gen-Zs may still recall their first active shooter drills, which became common in all schools around the time after the Columbine shooting (1999). However, in 2012, the Sandy Hook school shooting shook the world. There were a few school shootings in the past most were done by a student that went to that school. This was the first time that an elementary school was attacked by a person who was not a student or a teacher at the school. Twenty-six people died; twenty were kids between 6 and 7 years old. This shooting lives in the memory of many Gen-Z minds.

This caused America to fight for gun control. This put fear in kids and parents around the world about attending school. Was it safe anymore? Children sat on the couch and watched students, like them, being marched out of school with pale little faces that had seen too much of the world at too young of an age. 

“All the school shootings that have gone on. That made me aware of the present world. Definitely,… I used to like to live in this bubble of rainbows and unicorns or whatever, but no, it has really opened my eyes to what’s going on,” said senior Ana Boucek. 

Additionally, Gen-Z is the generation given full access to technology. If it can fit in 280 characters, it can be public in a matter of seconds. This easy access to the internet allowed children of Gen-Z to learn how to search and tease and surround others with their insecurities. 

Not only has technology messed with the mental state of Gen-Z, but also their socialization. “It makes life a lot easier in a lot of ways, but it’s also been, you know, to some degrees not so great because a lot of people use it to communicate more than… just having conversations with people, and I think that that’s something that’s been lost. I hope it doesn’t become completely lost because I think that’s a very important part of our society to have conversations with other people,” said Reitman.  

Witnesses, it might be the only word in the English dictionary that can properly describe Generation Z. Gen-Z is the generation that watched, whether that was in front of a television or being there when these events took place. As many of the last Gen-Zs enter high school, a question arises, what more can happen? What other future events will they have to witness?