XII Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2020

The modern world requires fresh views, ideas, advanced knowledge and extensive skills in the use of computer technology. Young people of our time are increasingly beginning to have these skills. It is not surprising that social scientists characterize the modern Generation as generation Z or "digital generation". Is this true or not? Let's try to understand this issue.

We think that first of all it is necessary to begin with definition of this term, to understand what people belong to Generation Z. This generation includes people born in 1995-2001, depending on the level of technology development in different countries. It is believed that the people of generation Z "were born with a smartphone in their hands", it means, they are surrounded by technical resources since childhood.

We decided to conduct a social survey among students of the Vladimir State University to find out whether modern youth belongs to this generation, and after analyzing it, we got a complete picture of generation Z, its features.

According to the results of our survey on "Generation Z", we found out that young people of our time characterize themselves as open to communication people who strive for successful self-improvement and self-realization. 23.8% of respondents choose such prestigious professions as PR-manager, supervisor, translator, web designer, which means that they have a special outlook, unlimited thinking, a huge number of ideas and modern technological resources. 19% of students chose for themselves more widespread professions among which, the teacher, the economist, the accountant. The rest (57.2%) chose the profession on an individual basis.

Also, based on the survey, we can say that our generation prefers real communication, spending free time outside and leading an active lifestyle (namely 87%) of respondents, only a small part voted for virtual communication and spending free time using gadgets (12.5 %).

The study showed that the majority of respondents partially reveal such qualities as infantilism, inattention, egocentricity, which is one of the characteristics of the generation (70.8 %), 12.5 % reveal all these characteristics, the rest 16.7 % have no the character traits.

Young people noted that the modern generation is clearly different from the previous ones. During analyzing the answers, we faced such opinions as: “I think every generation lives in its own "world”, “The differences are manifested in the values and resources that are available”, “Yes, our generation is more civilized”, “Yes, it is more mobile, most tied to information technology”.

Students have a mixed opinion about the characteristics of the modern generation: some call it "soulless, dependent on the Internet, selfish", while others, on the contrary, assign it positive characteristics, calling it "tolerant, information-developed, open". Despite this, only 34,8% of the respondents considered themselves to be Generation Z, 43.5 per cent found it difficult to answer and the rest 21.7 per cent are unable to relate themselves to Generation Z.
From our research, we can conclude that young people of the 21-st century can really belong to generation Z. Respondents often use technical equipment in daily life, and some of them can not imagine their existence without a computer or mobile phone. But despite the fact, that our generation is surrounded by technology, the possibility of unlimited use of Internet networks, it is not closed, on the contrary, it is open to communication, cooperation, active pastime.

Our overall assessment for this generation is a generation of open people, distinguished by creativity, high efficiency, the desire to realize themselves as a personality and as a professional in their field, highly qualified specialists in various fields of science, advanced technologies and a limitless stock of ideas that they seek to come into reality for the benefit of the future of both their own and society.

References:

1. Neil Howe, William Srauss. The history of American future 1584 to 2069. — Harper Perrenial, 1997.

2. Generation Z. [Electronic resource] - https://ru.wikipedia.org

3. Е. Шамис, Е. Никонов. Теория поколений: Необыкновенный Икс. — М.: Синергия, 2016.

4. Поколения X. Отличия и особенности. [Электронный ресурс] - https://zen.yandex.ru

5. Авдеева Н.А. К вопросу об изменении обучающей среды студентов «цифрового поколения» // Мир. Человек. Язык: сборник научных трудов. Владимир: Изд-во ВлГУ, 2019. 351 с. С.326-330.