36% of Gen Z adults say their social media use has given them a more positive outlook toward women, while 25% report a more positive outlook toward men, according to a Morning Consult poll. — AFP Relaxnews
Social networks can influence our perceptions. And, according to one survey, young people belonging to Generation Z are more likely than US adults as a whole to report that their social media use has negatively impacted their outlook toward men or women.
Are members of Gen Z more prone to negativity than other generations on average? Could this be due to social networks and the time they spend on these platforms? According to a study by Morning Consult,* a significant proportion of Generation Z adults say that using social networks had given them a more negative view of men (30%) and women (22%).
These results are significantly higher than for US adults as a whole, and for all other major demographic groups, the research points out, with an average of 15% of adults who say that social media use has given them a more negative outlook toward men, and 12% a more negative outlook toward women.
Younger generations, who are more present on social networks, may therefore be more inclined to encounter negative content. In fact, they are more likely than the general population to feel negative emotions after spending more than an hour on social networks. And platforms that generally encourage this length of use, such as YouTube and TikTok, are among the most popular applications with Generation Z, Morning Consult points out.
The fault of users?
Online content is also singled out for its role in this phenomenon. From the "sleepy girl mocktail", the "mob wife" and the "clean girl" to the "pottery boy" or the “pick me boy”, some recent online trends have surfed on gender stereotypes.
Moreover, Generation Z is the population group most likely to engage in doomscrolling, the compulsive scrolling of negative information on their smartphones and social networks. Nearly a third of American adults who use social networks (31%) say they doomscroll "a lot" or "sometimes”. Among Generation Z adults, this proportion rises to 53%, compared with 46% for Millennials, Morning Consult explains.
Nevertheless, for 62% of Gen Zs, excessive exposure to this kind of negative content is ultimately the fault of users themselves, rather than social media companies.
"That’s a major public relations win for platforms, as most content that could be classified as 'anti-gender' doesn’t fully violate standard policies around misinformation, abuse or incitement of violence – and therefore is complicated to moderate," the study pointed out. – AFP Relaxnews
*Survey conducted Feb 17-19, 2024 among a representative sample of 2,200 US adults with an unweighted margin of error of +/-2 percentage points.
