I’ve Experienced the ‘Gen Z Stare’ While Teaching College Students

Doug Weaver, 36, is an artist who, until 2024, taught at several colleges in the St. Louis area as an adjunct professor and, at times, experienced the so-called “Gen Z stare,” a phrase that’s recently gained traction on social media. The following has been edited for brevity and clarity.

At the start of any class, I’ve always had jitters because you never know what the class dynamics will be.

There were a few years where it was hard just to get students to interact with each other, especially for those who were in their junior or senior year of high school when COVID-19 hit.

With my students, I would give instructions, and they would just stare at me. Or, we were going to do introductions, and I would be like, “OK, it’s your turn to introduce yourself,” and they would just stare at me. I’m like, “Am I asking wrong?”

After COVID, I did see an increase in the amount that students who just don’t engage, and it makes it a lot harder to get the class going. To be able to actually teach the class, and to be able to actually know where you are, I just need a little bit of interaction. I need a bit of what your background is, what your name is, and what your interest in art is.

For a few years after COVID, I would give students the questions that we were going to discuss and have them write things down. Then, you’re reading it instead of saying it. That would be helpful, though sometimes they wouldn’t write anything. That’s when I would just be like, I don’t really know what to do.

If you just don’t participate — I expect that more from middle school and high school students. Those students often don’t want to be there, but they have to be. In my case, these were college students. I was like, “You’re choosing to be here, and you’re paying to be here.”

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That’s what was always hard for me. I want you to have the experience that you want. And if you won’t tell me, if you won’t interact with me, then I don’t know what your values are or what kind of interaction you want.

Why videos feel more comfortable

You need students to ask questions when they don’t know what to do. Sometimes it’s good for them to say, “Hey, I’m a little lost.”

During COVID, when everything was online, I made video versions of a lot of my in-class demonstrations and lectures. I still made those videos after students came back to class. Yet the in-class demo was better because you can ask questions, and I can talk to you more specifically about what I’m doing. But I would find that, instead of asking questions or asking me to clarify things, I would have students watching the videos during class.

I would even have students watch the video of me doing a demonstration while I am doing that same demonstration in class. It’s mind-blowing to me, but it almost just felt more comfortable for them to look at that on a screen.

I really think that those few years of being on Zoom for everything affected that entire generation’s social skills. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. The future is more and more online. A lot of them are going to be working online, and so navigating online social spheres and Zoom work life is important.

The value of being in class is social interaction, getting specific questions answered, and getting an education that is specific to you. If you’re in the class, watching a video of the class — it really just broke my brain a little bit to see that happen.

The way education is now, most information that you’re going to get in school, you can get online. The value of going to an educational institution is to have that education tailored toward you. The reason you’re there is for you to work on your own self-expression, your own way that you navigate the world, and having someone looking at what you do and tailoring the education toward you.

With colleges and universities, what you pay for is the way the information is presented, and for the interaction that you have with professors and with experts, and to have opportunities to meet people and to just have experiences that you wouldn’t be able to have otherwise.

A tarnished experience

This group of students had a really bad situation because of COVID. For some of them, their high school experience was really tarnished, and, for some, their college experience was tarnished. Their education was lacking, and their social interaction was lacking. Their ability to enter the workforce was affected. It really just negatively impacted every social aspect of their lives.

I know how much COVID negatively impacted my mental health, and I am far past my most-formative years. So, there’s no way that couldn’t have a huge impact on their mental health. There’s all this conversation about them staring at you in a social interaction when it’s just like, the world failed them. Society failed them in a major way.

The larger discussion should be that we need to figure out better ways for all of us to have access to the mental health services that we need, because I don’t think we have recovered from COVID.

Do you have a story to share about the “Gen Z stare?” Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com.