The kids are really alright — and that should scare us

TLDR is running a post that calls out the usual panic about Gen Z. The author — a founder — says the headlines are wrong. The kids aren't doom-scrolling themselves to death. They're not addicted to TikTok. They're actually doing better than the data would suggest. The post is a response to the endless column inches written about how young people are ruined by screens, social media, and whatever the last bad thing is.

The argument is simple: the kids are fine. They're working, building things, surviving the housing market and the wage stagnation and the whole thing. The panic is mostly older people projecting their own regrets onto a generation that's dealing with a different world. The author doesn't sugarcoat — Gen Z has real problems — but the narrative that they're broken is just wrong.

This is the same story we keep hearing about every generation. Boomers worried about the kids. Millennials worried about the kids. Now it's Gen Z's turn to be the problem. The kids are always the problem until they aren't.

Why this matters for us: the same people who write off our kids will write off our communities — we don't need the panic to be true to get the help we actually deserve.