Gen Z Wants to Disconnect According to Professor Mathieu Alemany Oliver
The Gen Z, born between the late 1990s and the early 2010s, has evolved alongside the digital world. While growing up with digital technology, it doesn’t mean that they necessarily control their screen time. The proliferation of applications and being constantly on screens for work and leisure can lead to a desire to disconnect. According to a study by INSEE, published in June 2024, a third of internet users reported experiencing at least one harmful effect of screen time.
Youth are particularly affected, with 57% of those under 20 feeling this way, as well as 49% of those aged 20-34. To limit these effects, 57% of 15-19 year-olds and 49% of 20-24 year-olds have tried to reduce their screen time, as well as 50% of those aged 25-29. The reasons why young people want to disconnect include “structural fatigue linked to usage, therefore technological overload,” says marketing professor Mathieu Alemany Oliver, interviewed by TF1info.
Older Technologies as a Response to Digital Saturation
According to the expert, using connected devices and social media as well as continuous exposure from childhood can lead to “cognitive overstimulation.” This overstimulation saturates the working memory with too much information, creating difficulty in processing and prioritizing information, increased mental fatigue, and reduced performance in handling more complex cognitive tasks, explains the marketing professor.
To disconnect, the Gen Z turns to analog activities, as shown by the resurgence of popularity in the iPod, which allows listening to music without being connected to the internet. “Older technologies are a response to digital saturation,” notes Mathieu Alemany Oliver. Unlike streaming platforms, listening on an iPod is limited to storage space. “It forced us to ‘work,’ for example, to choose songs to download, make compromises with our playlist The concept of work is important here,” he asserts.
Towards a New Relationship with Technology?
Is a disconnect possible? “The smartphone is a real social dependency” and “we have a form of addiction here,” says the professor. According to him, this desire to disconnect from the Gen Z can lead to a “liberating relationship” with “more regulation, with technology requiring more intentionality from users and an increase in digital well-being.” Finally, Mathieu Alemany Oliver recounts asking his students if they would like to live in the 1980s, to which they unanimously answered yes. They mainly mentioned “social connection and the feeling of time passing more slowly, where not everything moves as fast as today.” While these responses are based on an idealized representation, they reveal “a different relationship with the world, a symbolic counter-model of the present,” concludes the marketing professor.
