To help further understand Gen Z, BLUP let fifteen years old Roshni Rai explain to us how they talk to each other, what platforms they use, and more importantly, why?

“Here’s a quick guide on how our teenage brains think when it comes to talking to people through our phones.

Let’s start off with Snapchat, which is my favourite app and also every other teenager I know. It’s so quick and easy to talk on to keep in touch with people. You can send snaps to multiple people at once and it requires very little effort. You find yourself always starting new interesting conversations with people when you reply to their stories. One of my favourite features is private stories because if I find a funny video or something has happened, I can put it on there for only my selected friends to see. Another one of my favourite features is that I can half swipe my messages so if I don’t feel like replying to someone just yet (because sometimes I’m just not in the mood for people), I can swipe it to see if it’s important and reply later without them knowing I ever saw it in the first place.

Instagram is on my phone for the sole purpose of sending and receiving memes and funny posts from my friends. Other teenagers also use it to post pictures, but I don’t, but I do comment on posts when they look nice. I have my family on Instagram because I don’t have them on other social media platforms, so they don’t feel like I’m trying to completely hide my life from them. Boys use it to slide into girls DMs but it usually ends up in them just getting their snapchat and continuing from there.

I personally love twitter, but a lot of teenagers don’t use it and its extremely underrated. Its full of the stupidest people I’ve ever met which makes it so funny.

Tiktok is one of those apps, you either love it or hate it. Some people can spend all day on it and some people thinks it’s wet and for people who don’t have a life, there’s no real in-between. I think it’s hilarious to be honest, I could easily spend hours on there doing absolutely nothing but even those who hate it, as soon as they downloaded it, they get addicted too.

Studies show usage across social media and communication vary massively across generations from boomers to gen-Z (see above)

Facebook is for old people, we don’t need it.

WhatsApp is for family and family only. There’s absolutely no need for it at all to be honest and I would rather use text.

I’m not quite sure if this one is only me and my friends or its everyone, but we hate saving numbers. It’s completely unnecessary, unless I talk to you on a regular basis, I won’t save your number because there’s no need. Why would I save a number for someone I will speak to once or twice and never again?

We also hate calling people, but we do like to facetime. Only our friends though. And if we have a long story to tell we will voice note it because typing takes a lot of effort. So, we will listen to each other voices through voice notes, but we won’t listen through the phone.

To conclude, our logic makes absolutely no sense to other people, but it does to us.”
– Roshni Rai, 15 years old, London.