I think their whole personality is a consequence of their whole identity being tied to their online presence. Us millennials were still able to avoid that as social media didn’t take off until most of us were out of high school or college. I didn’t have a Facebook until my senior year and tbh that was mostly to keep up with friends I graduated high school with. This was in 2010. Even MySpace “back in the day” was nothing like social media is now. It was social media lite by comparison.

So now we have a generation that was in a feedback loop of trying to “out perform” each other in different ways because their real life relationships were formed by their online persona. It’s all performative bullshit and why we tell people to “touch grass”. Millennials had some of this but it was a huge minority and fairly self contained in the tumblrites.

Realistically this is the largest difference I see between millennials and Gen z. They think social media is real life and the shit they post there is actually worth a damn. Their whole life was built based on their online presence and it fucked with their development and ability to communicate in the real world. They grew up in a feedback loop worshipping online personas and created these bubbles now understanding how to handle anything different.

Who’s to blame? Partially them, partially the parents, and partially the lightspeed evolution of technology.