Does anyone else feel like society is heading toward a breaking point?
GenZ here. I feel like the world is falling apart. Every day when I open Microsoft Edge I see articles about WW3, whether it's US-Iran, Russia-Ukraine or potential future wars like China-Taiwan. It looks like the days of peace are over. Many countries here in Europe are increasing their defense spending and this affects GenZ. Now young German men will need to fill in a questionnaire to see who would be suitable for military. The fact that the governments are preparing young men to become cannon fodder shows that GenZ is having it tough.
The job market is also getting worse. If it was hard to get a job before, now it's pretty much impossible due to AI. I feel like there's at least 1000 applications for one position and it's brutal. Most employers don't even bother sending rejection emails. It also doesn't matter which university you went to or what course you did, the result is the same. I can confirm that I can also put my own degree in the bin. I would never encourage anyone to go to university anymore. Maybe back in the day, degrees used to be valuable, but not anymore. Disappointed with my experience. I think universities have now become businesses. They take your money, but then when you leave, good luck getting a job.
The housing market is also awful. I asked ChatGPT to plot average house prices compared to average salary:
Not sure about the accuracy of this but if it is correct then since 1980s, average house prices increased from £23k to £271k in 2025. That's more than 10x in over 40 years. Now compare that with the average yearly salary. It increased from £6.2k to £41k, that's about 6x or 7x depending on how you round the numbers, but that is not 10x, so the point is that the salaries have not been increasing at the same rate as house prices and now young people can't afford their first home, unless they find good saving strategies, like living with parents etc..
I also think that the dating market is screwed. I think most people now feel happy being single. I think social media inflated people's expectations. For example, women generally prefer rich, tall, muscular, 6ft dudes driving ferraris because that's what is being shown on social media. On the other hand, guys also go for girls which are pretty, so we have a situation where both sides feel disappointed and expectations are unrealistic. This contrasts with the situation 20 years ago or even 10 years ago, where people were more interested in each other rather than being wholly interested in themselves.
I think GenZ is definitely having it harder than other generations. For other generations, It was easier to save money for a house, it was easier to find a normal person as your partner, it was easier to get a job because degrees were valued and there was no AI, and there was no real risk of WW3. I think it's probably fair to say that we're heading toward a societal crisis, and I predict that actually many countries are going to collapse from within rather than being destroyed by nukes due to WW3. Overall, I don't blame GenZ or even Gen alpha losing all hope in this society and I can definitely relate.
Posted Jul 7, 2026, 9:56 PM UTC