Swapping sex for Instagram likes, meet the ruthlessly ambitious social generation forging identity in full public view

An extraordinary 30% of young people claim they would either give up sex, do over their best frjend or never go on holiday, in order to “make it” in life, reveals a new white paper by leading youth creative agency ZAK.

As the first generation to truly come of age during the social media era, today’s 16-24 year olds are growing up in a digital goldfish bowl of judgement and distorted reality that is framing their ambitions and values, during the formative years that form their personal sense of identity.

Over 52% of 16-24 year olds believe that that they are more ambitious than their parents. And 44% would prefer to run their own business than be an employee in a larger organisation.

The extensive research, drawn from fieldwork interviews by ZAK and supported by a 1,000 respondent survey, focused specifically on young people aged 16–24 years of age. The findings were analysed in collaboration with leading industry experts and neuroscientists to create the most in-depth study yet into the specific challenges brands will face in adapting to this unique audience.

Nearly half (45%) of all 16-24 year olds admit that their social media posts are not an accurate portrayal of their true identity, whilst four in ten of those surveyed claim that they feel constantly judged.

Against a social landscape that projects imagined utopias and inaccessible trappings of success to an impressionable audience, the research points to a generation being forced to BETA test their sense of selfhood and ambitions in real time. 43% of respondents believed that social media “makes me want what I can’t have”, whilst 52% feel that they are more ambitious than their parents.

Further key findings included:

• 25% don’t feel they can be themselves on line
• Almost a third feel they don’t have a fixed identity
• 42% prefer small, tight-knit friendship cliques over large extended groups

The context for ZAK’s white paper, titled ‘Decoding Youth Identity in the Social Age’, comes in the form of the existing ‘social age’, which makes today’s 16-24 year olds the first generation to truly grow up in the face of social media. Neuroscientists have long revealed that this formative age is the critical moment in life when true individual IDENTITY is formed, the time when young people form their values, ideas and personal ambitions.