What do young people want? Who knows? When do they want it? We have no idea because they talk only to each other. What do they watch? Well, there may be some insight into this question at least, thanks to the release this week of the annual Teens & Screens survey by UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers.
Over the past few years research has repeatedly shown that Gen Z aren’t interested in sex on screen, but what else can the survey help studios and streamers to learn about the demographic they remain overreliant on? This year’s Teens & Screens report is titled “Get Real: Reliability on Demand”, a title so obviously thought up by a group of older people researching younger ones that it makes you cringe. However, it does reflect the big takeaway — the kids want the media they consume to be a reliable, authentic representation.
The study’s findings are drawn from interviews with 1,500 racially, ethnically, economically and geographically diverse participants of different genders in the 10-24 age group. As with all young people, across the generations, Gen Z is drawn to the kinds of media consumption that fosters social interaction about the content they watch, with 53% of respondents saying they discuss shows and movies with friends more than content from social media. They’re also, somewhat surprisingly, more likely to consume media using traditional platforms than you might expect.
Most of those polled prefer animated content over live action, with 48.5% of those interviewed across the age group indicating that animation is their preferred genre.
If it weren’t for the ever-rocketing cost of going to the movies, the age-old weekend outing to catch a film would be the chosen leisure activity of Gen Z, who prefer to watch films with their friends to talking about video games or going to music concerts. Fifty-seven percent of those surveyed said they watched traditional media more than their parents and boomers assumed.
However, while Gen Z’s preferences may seem pretty old school regarding content, the way that they consume it may have many of us scratching our heads. According to Variety, “Nearly 80% of respondents said they sometimes, most of the time or always watch TV shows and movies on YouTube or TikTok rather than on TV or in theatres.” That may be a more cost-effective way of catching up on the latest films and shows, but it’s not ideal for filmmakers who want to have your uninterrupted attention for a few hours.
I’s unsurprising to learn that young people would like to see more stories about people “with lives like mine”.
Their preference for less or no sex and the complications it so often adds to relationships was reinforced in this year’s study, with 59.7% saying they wanted to see more stories in which the central relationships were friendships rather than romantic relationships. They’d also like to see a wider diversity of onscreen friendships between different genders; 49% would like to see more depictions of relationships between characters of the same gender.
Gen Z finds the current norms of romance on screen boring and would like to see stories that explore the friendship aspects of relationships rather than the sexual ones. Toxic relationships and love triangles aren’t for this generation, 48.4% of whom believe that there is “too much sex and sexual content in TV and movies”.
The favourite shows named by Gen Z respondents support these preferences for friendship rather than icky sex stuff. Stranger Things, Wednesday, SpongeBob SquarePants and Spider-Man all score high on the approval ratings.
The future of film and TV content is determined by Hollywood’s struggle to understand young people and give them what they want, so any kind of research is useful not only to those who produce content but to viewers like the rest of us who may wonder what the future holds. Older viewers are at the back of the line but at least we can’t say we weren’t warned when things on streaming platforms become distinctly less sexual and more friendly and animated.
For the moment, it’s good to know that Gen Z hasn’t given up on the movies and going to watch them in cinemas yet. If cinemas adjust their pricing accordingly, that may help to stop the youth from resorting to watching whole films and series in hours of bite-sized clips on TikTok.
It’s also reassuring to realise that the long-held pleasures of post-watch discussion, debate and argument about films isn’t going anywhere, even if the methods of conducting them may shift from coffee shops and couches to online platforms.
Finally, the kids’ demand for “relatability, authenticity and depictions of resonant relationships rooted in durable values” on screen sounds like something we can all get behind in an age increasingly characterised by tension, fury and stubborn indifference to other people’s lives and opinions. However, like any ideal held by the youth, we’ll have to check back in a decade to see whether it’s survived.
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