Yes, my name is Chloe Combi, and I'm

here today to talk to you about my book,

"Generation Z, Their Voices, Their Lives."

And to reiterate, it was a strange kind

of genesis, this book, because I'm not originally a writer.

I was a school teacher.

And I was a schoolteacher straight out of university,

and I taught in quite challenging

inner London schools.

And there, I started my own education charity

called Write Club, which got quite a lot of media attention.

And because of that, i started writing for newspapers,

sort of darkly humorous pieces about the realities of teaching

life.

And then from there, I started writing features

about, I guess, the grittier aspects of teen life,

so on grooming, and busing, and gangland

culture, and dog fighting.

And yes, those did get quite a lot of attention.

I think they were well timed as well.

And what became very clear was that there

was this real need for this window into teenage life.

So Generation Z was born.

And the concept, I suppose, was simple enough.

it was gonna take about 3 years to research and write it,

and I'd already kind of started.

And the aim was to interview 2,000 teenagers, which I hit.

So it's a big sample of teenagers.

And this isn't a book just about gritty teenagers.

It's from the most kind of normal teenage experience

to the most extreme, because you have to get the whole range.

And so I think it's a good insight

into who teenagers in the UK in the 21st century are.

So who are Generation Z?

Well, we're already talked a bit about this.

And actually, originally, and I wanted

to call this book Generation I. I

didn't want to call it Generation Z,

but we'll go back into that later.

And the small i, because I thought

the I for the narcissistic I, which

is a quality that this generation are accused

of a lot, the i, which obviously is

a sort of sly nod to Apple, which most teenagers are

completely enthralled with, I'm sure you know.

And obviously, i for information,

which is a real quality of everyday life

that we're all into.

But there was a fear that people would

assume that it was a book about technology,

and it's not at all, because I'm not a tech expert.

So many things.

So it became Generation Z.

And actually Generation Z was more of

understood as a sociological label than I realized.

Because we've all heard of Generation X.

That was a real thing, and there was books on Generation X.

But Generation Y, which I'm guessing most people in here

fall into, kind of fell through the cracks?

And they were sometimes called the millennial generation,

and sometimes called the post-baby boomer generation.

So on a very simple level, Generation Z

are the children of Generations Y and Generation X.

And some of them probably actually

have grandparents now who are Generation X, which

is a bit terrifying.

And for me, for my purposes, they were teenagers.

Everyone who I interviewed in this book

and who is in this book is between the ages of 13 to 19.

But for some people writing about Generation Z,

they widen that cohort a little bit,

and they're probably more 12 to 22 year-olds.

And currently there's a lot of scare pieces about how

the oldest of Generation Z are about to enter the workplace,

and ill-equipped they are, and how they can't talk properly,

and don't write properly, and they write in text speak,

and speak in text speak.

But for my purposes, they were teenagers.

On a much more complex level, they were as complex

as any big group of people.

They're as complicated, and as strange, and as multifaceted,

and as normal, and as likable, and a unlikable,

and as difficult to define as any other large group.

But there were themes, and they were coming up again,

and again, and again.

They became quite predictable, and they

formed the natural chapters of the book.

And not in any order, and I can't never

remember all of these, but they are sex, of course,

and body, of course, school, family, friendships

and relationships, crime, gender, class, race,

the future, and technology.

And technology particularly I wanted to focus on a bit,

obviously, considering this audience.

But also because it is interesting

for this generation, because this is the first generation--

this is the thing that differentiates this generation.

This is the first generation that have grown up

with the internet.

They've grown up with social media.

They've grown up with mobile phones,

and they've never known a world without those things.

The rest of it's probably can remember a world when

we didn't have those things, but this generation has never

known world without them, and it's massively

influenced who they are, and how they've evolved,

and how they think.

And on the way, I actually met a few kids,

several who spring to mind, and I'm

gonna read you a very short piece, who

didn't realize that the internet used to not exist.

And they actually thought I was pulling their leg,

and they had to go and google this fact, which obviously

in ironic in and of itself.

And I'm going to read you a very short piece from the book.

Now this is a trigger warning.

There's swearing.

And if you do end up reading this book,

there's lots of swearing, and there's

lots of quite grim stuff in it.

There's lots of really funny and happy stuff as well,

but there is swearing.

And I'm not going to give you the whole description,

but these are three boys, and basically

them describing their relationship every day

with technology.

And these three boys have never read a book,

except "Holes" by Louis Sachar, because they were made to,

and "Romeo and Juliette," because they

were made to at school.

And they figured that they probably

accrued individually, probably about $250 a week

online in some way, like gaming and so on.

And these are three different boys.

One's called Raj, one's called Abdi, and one's called Jouad,

Do you know what I found out the other day?

That the internet used to not exist.

I didn't know that, and my mind was all like, the fuck.

And this is the next one.

You're such a fool.

Of course it didn't used to exist.

Mobile phones used to not exist.

That's jokes, man.

Can you imagine no mobile phones?

How would you even talk to people?

With your mouth, you dickhead.

But no, man.

The world would be so shit without all the stuff we have.

The teachers are all negative about it

and say it's sucking our brains up, but that's bullshit.

I was gaming with this sick guy in Columbia the other day.

He told me the shit about Colombia

that I didn't know from geography lessons.

That's educational.

And he told me he gangbanged my mum and sisters as well.

But that's just gaming, isn't it?

You cuss each other to the max.

It's psychological banter, isn't it?

You want them to get all pissed off with you so that they lose.

And it goes on.

So that leads on to my next question, which

is do teenage boys and girls engage with and get treated

by the internet differently?

well, that piece obviously referenced gaming quite a lot.

And I'm not gonna go into gaming today, because I don't game,

and I don't really know enough about the logistics

and the politics of it to really go into in detail.

What I do know is that it's a real red button

topic at the moment, particularly

to do with gender, because there's

this whole thing about how it's a traditionally male thing,

and more and more girls want to game.

But thumbs up to teenage boys.

I will say that I met very few who seemed

to have a problem with that.

They were very inclusive about the idea.

And that seems to be more of an issue

that a few gray men seem to have a problem with,

and I'll let you make of that what you will.

Both genders are, as I'm sure you know,

hugely, hugely, hugely in social media.

But that relationship's evolving and changing really,

really quickly.

And I guess what you would describe

as the granddaddy of social media, which would be Facebook,

is in its death throes with teenagers.

They're completely out.

They leaving by the hundreds of thousands every day.

And for the reason, and I quote, it's

because there's too many old people on there.

Their parents and their grandparents are now on there,

and 16 year-olds don't want to hang out with their parents

and grandparents in real life, and they certainly

don't online.

I don't think teenagers ever really embraced

Twitter that much.

I think it's much more of a middle class adult thing.

I think that middle class adults love to go on Twitter

and either show off or get offended by things.

I think that kids like Twitter for stalking people,

but other than that, they don't really

talk about in any kind of passionate way.

The three things that they're really into,

the mainstream stuff, there's lots of underground stuff,

but the three big ones they're into at the moment

are Snapchat, Instagram, and YouTube.

Now YouTube I'm not gonna talk about too

much, because it almost deserves a talk unto itself.

Because the YouTubers are the teen-appointed new rock

stars and royalty.

They are huge, and these are completely teen-led trends.

Like, beyond the ages of 19, probably PewDiePie

means absolutely nothing to you, but they

are like these little gods to millions and millions

of teenagers.

And what's interesting is this is not industry or adult-led.

This is entirely teen-led, which goes

to show that they have quite a lot of autonomy and power

on the internet.

But the one I wanted to talk about today

was actually Instagram, because there I

think there is a really interesting gender

political paradigm that comes up.

Male vanity is a thing, and it's a growing thing,

and there's lots of issues about boys and their body image.

But if you look at the Instagram page

of the average teenage boy, it revolves

around stuff or action.

Stuff being cool, if they're a bit older,

cool cars, cool headphones, cool shades, school threads.

And or it revolves around action,

so like, on holiday surfing with their mates,

or on the side of a mountain with their hands

in the air at sunset.

Or if they're a bit younger, maybe

like looning around a classroom with their friends,

and making those kinds of signs.

Girls Instagram page revolve around the self.

And by the self, I mean the selfie self-- very stylized,

very sexualized, the duck face.

Now it's the fish face, which duck face is very 2015

and we're nearly 2016.

Lots and lots of pouting, and lots of focus on body,

in a very kind of sexualized way.

And when I was writing the book, the girls, lots of girls,

told me about selfie parties.