{"id":7179,"date":"2025-07-28T19:46:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T19:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=7179"},"modified":"2025-07-28T19:46:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T19:46:46","slug":"gen-z-should-give-health-care-a-stare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=7179","title":{"rendered":"Gen Z Should Give Health Care a Stare"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/div>\n

By KIM BELLARD<\/p>\n

Last I knew, Gen Z showed its disdain for older generations with a dismissive \u201cOK Boomer<\/a>.\u201d But that was a few years ago, and now, it appears, Gen Z doesn\u2019t even bother with that; instead, there is what has become known as the \u201cGen Z stare.\u201d You\u2019ve probably seen it, and may have even experienced it. TikTok influence Janaye defines it<\/a> thusly: \u201cThe Gen Z stare is specifically when somebody does not respond or just doesn\u2019t have any reaction in a situation where a response is either required or just reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been blowing up on social media and the media over the last few days, so it apparently has tapped into the social zeitgeist. It\u2019s often been attributed to customer service interactions, either as a worker receiving an inane request or as a customer facing an undue burden.<\/p>\n

You can already see why I link it to healthcare.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s off-putting because, as Michael Poulin, an associate psychology professor at the University at Buffalo, told Vox<\/em><\/a>: \u201cPeople interpret it as social rejection. There is nothing that, as social beings, humans hate more. There\u2019s nothing that stings more than rejection.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many attribute the Gen Z stare to Gen Z\u2019s lack of social experience caused by isolation during the pandemic, exacerbated by too much screen time generally. Jess Rauchberg, an assistant professor of communication technologies at Seton Hall University, would tend to agree, telling NBC News<\/em><\/a>: \u201cI think we are starting to really see the long-term effects of constant digital media use, right?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly, Tara Well, a professor at Bernard College, told Vox<\/em><\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s sort of almost as though they\u2019re looking at me as though they\u2019re watching a TV show\u2026 We don\u2019t see them as dynamic people who are interacting with us, who are full of thoughts and emotions and living, breathing people. If you see people as just ideas or images, you look at them like you\u2019re paging through an old magazine or scrolling on your phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Millennial Jarrod Benson told The Washington Post<\/em><\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s like they\u2019re always watching a video, and they don\u2019t feel like the need to respond. Small talk is painful. We know this. But we do it because it\u2019s socially acceptable and almost socially required, right? But they won\u2019t do it.\u201d Zoomer (as those of Gen Z are known) Jordan MacIsaac speculated to The New York Times<\/em><\/a>: \u201cIt almost feels like a resurgence of stranger danger. Like, people just don\u2019t know how to make small talk or interact with people they don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the other hand, TikTok creator Dametrius \u201cJet\u201d Latham claims<\/a>: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a lack of social skills. I just think we don\u2019t care,\u201d which might be more to the point.<\/p>\n

ABC News<\/em> cited<\/a> some customer service examples that deserved a Gen Z stare: \u201cI\u2019ve been asked to make somebody\u2019s iced tea less cold. I\u2019ve been asked to give them a cheeseburger without the cheese, but keep the pepper jack of it all.\u201d As Zoomer Efe Ahworegba put it<\/a>: \u201cThe Gen Z stare is basically us saying the customer is not always right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Ahworegba doesn\u2019t think a Gen Z stare doesn\u2019t reflect Gen Z\u2019s lack of social skills, but rather: \u201cThey just didn\u2019t want to communicate with someone who\u2019s not using their own brain cells.\u201d As some Zoomers say<\/a>, it is \u201cthe look they give people who are being stupid while waiting for them to realize they are being stupid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, as one commenter on TikTok wrote<\/a>: \u201cI think it\u2019s hilarious that Gen Z thinks they\u2019re the first generation to ever deal with stupidity or difficult customers, and that\u2019s how they justify the fact that they just disassociate and mindlessly stare into space whenever they are confronted with a difficult or confusing situation, instead of immediately engaging in the situation like every other generation has ever done before them lol.\u201d<\/p>\n

Or perhaps this is much ado about nothing. Professor Poulin noted<\/a>: \u201cTo some degree, it\u2019s a comforting myth that all of us who are adults \u2014 who\u2019ve gotten beyond the teens and 20s \u2014 that we tell ourselves that we were surely better than that.\u201d When it comes to displaying socially acceptable behavior, he says: \u201cThis isn\u2019t the first generation to fail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Gen Z is already skeptical of our traditional healthcare system, as well they might be. <\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

A new study from Edelman<\/a> found:<\/p>\n

45% of adults age 18 to 34 said they\u2019ve disregarded their health provider\u2019s guidance in favor of information from a friend or family member in the past year \u2014 a 13-point increase from the previous year.<\/p>\n

38% of young adults said they\u2019ve ignored their provider in favor of advice from social media, a 12-point increase from the year before.<\/p>\n

\u201cYounger adults have truly created their own health ecosystem with how they\u2019re looking for information, who they trust, what they\u2019re doing with health information,\u201d said Courtney Gray Haupt, Global Health Co-Chair and US Health Chair at Edelman.<\/p>\n

One might imagine the Gen Z stare a patient might give to a doctor giving them health advice.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also impacting the Gen Z members who are going into medicine. Grace Akatsu, an MD\/PhD student, told Medscape<\/em><\/a>: \u201cI think in the past, a job like being a physician has been viewed more of a calling \u2014 an all-consuming entity without much room for anything else. Gen Z sees it more as an important part of your life, but not your entire life.\u201d They added: \u201cIt is important \u2014 in a respectful and conscientious way \u2014 to try to push for change where needed, even if means pushing against the traditional hierarchies that can be baked into medicine,\u201d<\/p>\n

And, of course, expectations about technology are baked in. Lena Volpe, MD, a second-year resident in Ob\/Gyn at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, said<\/a>: \u201cThe way that my coresidents and medical students think about applying technology to medicine\u2026there\u2019s an automatic assumption that tech will make it more thorough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Refreshingly, though, BuzzFeed<\/em> reports<\/a> that patients\u2019 interactions with Gen Z clinicians are \u201cstrangely reassuring\u201d \u2013 more informal and collaborative. Seems like the opposite of a Gen Z stare!<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n

Healthcare is full of things that deserve a Gen Z stare, and not just from Zoomers. We all have our own stories of stupid things we\u2019ve had to go through, whether as patients, clinicians, or administrators. We just keep tolerating them all. The least \u2013 the very least! \u2013 we should do is to give them a Gen Z stare. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Kim is a former emarketing exec at a major Blues plan, editor of the late & lamented\u00a0<\/em>Tincture.io<\/em><\/a>, and now regular THCB contributor<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By KIM BELLARD Last I knew, Gen Z showed its disdain for older generations with a dismissive \u201cOK Boomer.\u201d But that was a few years ago, and now, it appears, Gen Z doesn\u2019t even bother with that; instead, there is what has become known as the \u201cGen Z stare.\u201d You\u2019ve probably seen it, and may…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7179\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}