1. Generation K is also growing up during a time of increased existential threat – perceived, if not actual. Seventy per cent say they are worried about terrorism, but this is a generation that knows no different – most are not old enough to remember life before 9/11. Although the vast majority will not have experienced terrorist attacks, gun crimes or extreme brutality first-hand, they have all done so virtually. Beheadings, bombings and violent murders are being piped into their smartphones 24/7.
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3. This generation is profoundly anxious. In the US, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 17% of high school students had seriously considered killing themselves. In England, there has been a threefold increase during the past 10 years in the number of teenagers who self-harm.
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5. But it probably won’t be governments or businesses that are able to reach such an anxious generation. Generation K is deeply distrustful of establishment institutions and, if anything, sees them as another source of anxiety. Only 6% of them trust big corporations to do the right thing, as opposed to 60% of adults. When asked what comes to mind when they think of global corporations, they typically volunteer words such as exploitative, selfish, arrogant, greedy, cheating and untrustworthy.