Samantha Winata It’s lunch time at school and you’re sitting with your friends on one of the benches in the high school courtyard. It’s lively and full of chatter, gossip about other people in the grade and complaints about strict teachers.
“What do we have next?” One of your friends asks.
You open your mouth to answer but another jumps in, “We’ve got history after.”
“I haven’t finished the homework.” They stand up, “I’m gonna go to my locker and get my book.”
“We’ll go with you.” Everyone stands except you. “Oh, you’re still finishing your lunch? We’ll be right back.”
You watch them turn and walk away, further, further and further, till you can’t see them anymore. You’re left with your lunch in front of you but you’ve suddenly lost your appetite.
‘Let’s face it, it’s not the first time they’ve left you out.’ Your thoughts start to haunt you, but you can’t deny them. There’s an unbearable sting as the realisation grows on you.
‘Maybe, just maybe, I’ve been alone this whole time.’
The World’s A Lonely Place
My fellow Gen-Z’s, we have an existential crisis in the midst of our generation. Can you guess what it is?
Yep, you’ve got it: it’s Loneliness
Although the example above doesn’t apply to everyone, we’ve become a victim to this desolate situation in some way or another. From friend groups to your immediate family; We can’t seem to escape the clasps of loneliness.
“But there’s eight-billion people in this world, how can we be lonely? Isn’t that another 7,999,999,999 people to befriend?”
Yes, but even people with huge social networks tend to find themselves wandering into isolation too, because at the end of the day, we each have our own problems to face and our own ways of dealing with them.
Our society is aware of its presence, but the way we’ve tried to address this issue… we are yet to succeed.
Anti-Social Media
“Need to talk to a relative across the world? Want to make new friends? Welcome to the digital world. Here, everything is accessible with a tap of the finger. Thanks to our new and advanced technology, we are now more connected than ever…”
Our teenage years have always indirectly been fed the “Instagram, AI, and gadgets-galore!” idea.
The introduction of apps such as Tik Tok and Snapchat, with the intention of connecting people in a more easier and convenient way, has unknowingly caused us to drift further apart. Now, we’ve become solely dependent on these devices to communicate with one another. But with every Snap we send and Instagram post we like, our purpose as social beings declines.
We become lonelier and lonelier.
“Why do you say that? These apps are used worldwide, which means we’re connected with everyone!”
But how can we fix this problem with just a simple friend request? Or a single or few comments on someone’s Tik Tok? This is the truth our generation must face. We know oh too well that this is something all teens struggle with. But we’ve become unresponsive. We’re so comfortable in this life by now, surrounded by social media, we’re probably too scared to address the dilemma we’re currently in, afraid to acknowledge that we are in need of help.
The Battle of The Heart
“Soooo, what do you s’pose we do now? It sounds hopeless honestly, we might as well live in seclusion.”
Fight fire with fire.
“Hol’ up. Fire? You wanna use fire to penetrate the imaginary walls of loneliness or something?”
What if I said we were looking at it all wrong? What if our society had been looking through the wrong lens this whole time?
What we’re dealing with is like something under this one huge umbrella. Many outcomes due to one factor. And that factor is sin.
God has made us as social beings who cannot live without fellowship with another of our kind. But sin has caused relationships to dissolve and communities to fall apart.
It’s time to sound the alarm. This is our call to face our opponent on the battlefield: our world. But this isn’t a physical battle. It’s a spiritual fight – a battle of the heart. But first, we need a proper battle strategy. Let’s discover together the perfect tactic as a troop of Gen-Z teens against this broken postmodern age.
Samantha Winata (15) is one of the many teens that write in RE Generation-Z. She strives to share the light of the truth through her articles and bring more teens to Christ. If she isn’t reading or playing piano, you’ll find her filling the pages in her books with drawings.