Young people are coming-of-age in an increasingly fragile world. Opportunities to own property, hold down fulfilling careers and have meaningful relationships, all while trying to enjoy this thing we call life, are crumbling before their eyes. But despite feeling powerless, Gen Z is anything but. Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z is the largest generation on earth and will represent 27 per cent of the global workplace by 2025.

Our latest report Ctrl Shift, launching today (July 25), places young people’s behaviours, desires and drives under a microscope. Combining qualitative and quantitative data with human creativity allows us to better understand the future of youth culture. Across five months, we surveyed an audience of over 2,000 Gen Z early adopters (those we consider at the forefront of discovering and embodying cultural trends), conducted focus groups with six Dazed club members, and consulted 34 global experts from art, culture and academia. These included Alexandria Williams, Creative Strategy Direction, TikTok Beauty; Jo Lowry, Strategic Director, The Future Laboratory; Joshua Citarella, Artists and Internet Culture Researcher; and Matt Klein, Head of Global Foresight, Reddit.

Ctrl Shift picks up where our report The Era of Monomass left off three years ago. Released amidst a global pandemic, Monomass – a term coined by Dazed to describe “hyper-individualism and mass trends existing comfortably side by side” – was an extensive report and study examining the state of influence and youth culture’s impact on a spiralling world. Arguably the most challenging time in our collective history, the societal, political and economic structures we expected to support us failed, forcing us to question everything we thought we knew.

Young people’s values are shifting again. To understand how far we’ve progressed – and regressed – since Monomass, three critical questions guided the creation of Ctrl Shift: What has changed over the last three years since the COVID pandemic? What are the driving forces influencing youth culture today? And finally, what could young people’s future look like? Our findings unravel over 200 pages split into six chapters (Self, Media, Society, Culture, Role Models, and Planet), each explored in three trends. 

Ctrl Shift will be released weekly in chapters from tomorrow. Each will unpack Gen Z’s ideas of influence and how these shape their lives, all supported by expert insight, case studies, brand models, takeaways, and predictions for what comes next.

You can purchase the full report here

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