Rage Against the Machine

Gen Z’s Apathy Epidemic: If Everything Matters, Then Nothing Does.

After months of the constant flow of negative news on my phone – unsuccessful ceasefires, wars, accusations of rape and pedophilia – I found myself feeling… Nothing. Not anger, sadness, not even shock. I don’t know if it’s a defense mechanism, or a retreat from constant trauma, but it feels like apathy has started settling in. I know I should care, and deep down I do, but my brain is idle; waiting and almost preparing itself for the next terrible thing to happen. And when it does, I watch it, process it, then scroll on to the next video. With our access to social media, along with having an almost sentient AI enabling our thoughts just at our horizon, I’m afraid we are going down a dark path.

This isn’t just a personal issue, it feels generational. With algorithms that seem to anticipate our thoughts before we even form them, it’s not just that we see more of our world, but that we are seeing too much of it, too quickly, without time to actually absorb and feel any of what we’re seeing.

The issue starts with the way that these social media platforms are being engineered. Social media algorithms are not, and were never designed to inform us; they were designed to keep us using these platforms, like a hamster running in its wheel. The longer we scroll and the more ads we see, the more money these corporations are making from us. Content that shocks, angers, and disturbs us tends to perform better in these algorithms, so it gets pushed to the top of our feed. Over time, this creates an environment where violent, explicit, and inflammatory content  is not just present, but rewarded for being posted. 

For Gen Z, there is at least some memory of a time where screens weren’t such a prevalent part of our life. However, for Late Gen Z (1997-2012) to Gen Alpha (2013-2028) and beyond, there has never been a world where screens weren’t an important aspect of life; a world without an endless stream of content. This constant exposure does something to our brains, slowly desensitizing us, weathering us down and possibly making us a more apathetic generation. 

On one hand, we have so much information available at our fingertips, infinite amounts of knowledge from Google, our social media feeds, and now unfortunately, ChatGPT. But on the other hand, most of this information is never really used. Think to yourself: when was the last time you applied what you’ve seen on your “For You” page or “Explore” page into real life? Where does this information go for you?  More importantly, the way that algorithms are built results in most social media content being wrapped up in bite-sized amounts of information, consumed one after the other. This roller coaster of emotions primes our brain into a dopamine loop, where we look to find the next best thing that will provide our brains with happy chemicals,like a gambling addict.

On top of the fact that these algorithms are designed to keep us locked into a loop, the amount of information that we take in daily is staggering; some estimates suggest that modern humans process about 75 gigabytes worth of information a day, a volume that was usually associated with specialists like scientists or researchers. Now for us, it’s just normal life. The difference being that only some of the information that we consume is useful, with the majority of it just being noise. Headlines, clips, “ragebait” opinions, all of which are fragments of stories that we never follow to completion. 

Charlie Kirk’s assassination is an example of this unnecessary amalgamation of information, where the news cycle kept replaying the incident, at multiple angles; sometimes showing his death in full view- all wrapped up in an app where others share their GRWM’s and dance videos. Having explicit content be shown alongside “normal” content desensitizes the viewer tremendously. A byproduct of this issue is shown in how easily it was for people to turn him into a meme. Though I don’t agree with his views, and I personally condemn how his views affected the pipeline that young impressionable people view world politics, I still find it appalling how easy it has been for people to mock his death through memes. Maybe it is a coping mechanism, or maybe it’s a sign that we no longer know how to respond.

At the same time, social media has drastically changed how opinions and ideas spread within communities. In the past, public discourse was shaped through slower, more deliberate conversations. Now, anyone can share their thoughts with the press of a button, to a wider audience garnered through the same weaponized inflammatory content. This type of open conversation can be democratic, and in some ways it is; but this also means that visibility is determined solely through intensity instead of veracity. The loudest voices tend to rise, instead of the more thoughtful ones.

How these algorithms are built creates an environment where misinformation spreads like wildfire. People are incentivized to post frequently and passionately, regardless of the accuracy of the information they are spreading. While some platforms attempt moderation (like Reddit, or X/Twitter through Community Notes), harmful or misleading content still slips through the cracks of the algorithm. The result of this lack of oversight is division, with communities infighting, arguing over fragments of information that may or may not be true, while the systems in place that encourage this type of behavior remain untouched.

The solution is not so simple. We cannot regress to a world without technology, nor does telling people to use their phones less address the deeper issue at hand. What might help is something much more basic; spending time engaging with people in real life. Not through curated profiles, or through filtered posts, but through in-person conversations with real life communities and strangers. Experiencing a world without screens in between us could help restore what we once had: a world where apathy to the common man was looked down upon, a world where we helped strangers the same way we helped our neighbors, and a world where empathy was the baseline.

Of course, there is an irony in me writing this. By producing this and posting this online, I am participating in the same system that I’m criticizing. I’m adding an opinion onto an already bloated and crowded space. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that people should be allowed to express themselves, and everyone has the right to it. However, there is a clear difference between having an opinion, and having a platform that amplifies said opinion without question.

To be completely fair, the existence of social media is not entirely negative. It’s connected people across the world in ways that were once thought to be impossible. It’s given a voice to people who would never have been heard otherwise- there is actual value in that. But connection without any depth can feel quite hollow, and constant exposure to content without reflection can leave us feeling numb.

If apathy is our symptom, then overload and overexposure is the cause. We as a generation are not truly uncaring, we are just overwhelmed. And until we find a way to slow down, without filtering what we consume, that feeling of nothingness might be an inevitable default for generations to come.