The Generation Z and their Social Media Usage: A Review and a Research Outline

Abstract

The paper tries to explore the awareness of how the present Generation Z is using the social media as well as to review its repercussion on them as an individual’s, organization and society as a system. The paper demarcates Generation Z from other branches of generation with a systematized differentiation in the behaviour, principles and choices which are constant over the time. It outlines their social media usage and intra-generational difference springing from environmental factors and personal factors. Personal factors are divided into steady and driving factors. The paper brings forward how the futuristic Generation Z’s use of social media influences them as an individual’s, organization and society. It also attempts to bring forward certain managerial repercussions and to them and a research outline. Earlier researches on access of social media by Generation Y as well as Generation Z give rise to certain queries which are yet to be answered. They laid focus mainly on the US & UK, ignoring other regions and countries (including nation like India which comprises of 28% of youths) with huge and rapidly increasing share of Generation Y’s & Z’s populations; and where the determinants of social-media usability would vary considerably; the customer set under these studies are those whose behaviour are inclined to vary as they move on the different phases of their life cycle; they tried to understand Generation Z’s social media use but misses to look at the controllers as well as aftermaths of social-media usage. The theoretical frame of reference brought forward in this paper harvests a thorough set of investigation questions and designs the pathway for considering the predecessors & outcomes of social networking used by Gen Z. It tries to identify certain ignored queries regarding Gen Z’s and their social media usability, along with also sketches practical insights for various decision makers.

Full text

The Generation Z and their Social Media Usage: A Review and a
Research Outline
Gyan PrakashYadav* and Jyotsna Rai
UP Rajarshi Tandon Open University, Allahabad - 211013, Uttar Pradesh, India;
gyanprakashaicte@gmail.com, jyotsnarai.faculty@gmail.com
Abstract
The paper tries to explore the awareness of how the present Generation Z is using the social media as well as to review its repercus-
sion on them as an individual’s, organization and society as a system. The paper demarcates Generation Z from other branches of
generation with a systematized differentiation in the behaviour, principles and choices which are constant over the time. It outlines
their social media usage and intra-generational difference springing from environmental factors and personal factors. Personal
factors are divided into steady and driving factors. The paper brings forward how the futuristic Generation Z’s use of social media

to them and a research outline.
Earlier researches on access of social media by Generation Y as well as Generation Z give rise to certain queries which are yet to
be answered. ey laid focus mainly on the US & UK, ignoring other regions and countries (including nation like India which com-
prises of 28% of youths) with huge and rapidly increasing share of Generation Y’s & Z’s populations; and where the determinants of
social-media usability would vary considerably; the customer set under these studies are those whose behaviour are inclined to vary
as they move on the dierent phases of their life cycle; they tried to understand Generation Z’s social media use but misses to look at
the controllers as well as aermaths of social-media usage. e theoretical frame of reference brought forward in this paper harvests
a thorough set of investigation questions and designs the pathway for considering the predecessors & outcomes of social networking
used by Gen Z. It tries to identify certain ignored queries regarding Gen Z’s and their social media usability, along with also sketches
practical insights for various decision makers.
Keywords: Black View, Generation X, Generation Y, Generation Z & Social Media
1. Introduction
e west has a neat tradition of sorting the generations into
nomenclatures like Gen X, Gen Y and now Gen Z. Generation Z,
or Gen Next plug in a peculiar fascination on marketing decision
makers and academicians across the globe. It has become a com-
mon trending jargon, Gen Z are the demographiccohort aer
Generation Y’s & X’s. e very active type and with high intensity
usage of social media platforms by Gen Z would be depicting the
technical know- how behaviour of upcoming generation. Some
published write-ups regarding Gen Z have laid emphasis upon
the social media usage pattern by youngsters these days. It can
be observed that this Gen Z are from good socio-economical
background and are residing in fully urbanized and develop-
ing economies where the access regulation to information and
communication technology (ICT) is less restricted and easily
available. However, it is quite self explanatory that due to cultural
and technological foundations the social media usage by Gen Z’s
in India is quite dierent from other countries. e aim of this
paper is to explore the awareness of the present Gen Z’s use of
social media and also to review its repercussion on them as an
individual’s, organizations and society as a system.
e use of social media by Gen Z is building high interest in
researchers, decision makers & marketing/service organizations
as they believe it is inuencing people’s behaviour in dierent
spheres: as favorable & unfavorable consequences for individuals,
organization’s young employees and society as a bigger system
2. Literature Review
2.1 Who are Generation Z or Zer’s?
e Brosdahl and Carpenter’s (2011)4 classication of genera-
tions using the birth year category for each cohort: Generation
X (1961-1980), Generation Y (1981-1990) and Generation Z
(1991 and aer) is followed. Gen Z is the rst to have Internet
technology so readily available and they have been exposed to
an unprecedented amount of technology in their upbringing,
courtesy the web revolution that occurred throughout the 1990s.
Global Journal of Enterprise Information System DOI: 10.18311/gjeis/2017/15748
*Author for correspondence

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People of Gen Z are naturally thought of as being so comfort-
able withtechnology, that interacting onsocial mediawebsites
is a signicant portion of their socializing behaviours.Gen Z are
having a strong ‘virtual bonding’, and it helps youngsters to break
out from emotional and psychological struggles they face oine.
e early, regular and inuential exposure to technology by Gen
Z have their plus and minuses in terms of rational, sentimental,
and social consequences.
2.2 Generational GAP
e dierent life cycle stages have oen acted as common glasses
in bringing together and interpreting actions and experiences of
dierent generational segments within populations, compared
to the traditional groupings of segment on the basis of soci-eco-
nomic class, culture and geographic locations. All generations
enduringly share a similar outlook and as they mature they build
up certain distinctiveness that dierentiates them from the older
generations: behavioural qualities, work ethics, attitudes, learn-
ing capability and motivational skills. Certain enduring traits like
increased mark down of eort towards work as nucleus to one’s
life and fragile work morals when comparing Gen Y’s & Gen Z’s
to previous generations
2.3 Social Media
In the narrowest sense the phrase social media is dene as any
electronic service through which Internet users be able to create
and share a variety of contents over the Internet. ey include
user developed services like online journals, social networking
websites, online game zones, audio-video sharing sites, online rat-
ing/ review forums, online groups, where users generate, design,
bring-out, or check over and verify the contents and informa-
tion. e user’s activities on social media are broadly classied as
either contribution, or consumption tasks and usually maximum
users are consumption oriented than contributors to the social
media. e user behaviour with respect to social media is chang-
ing at a rapid rate therefore; the theoretical frame of reference
describes the predecessor as well as the outcomes of social media
usage by Gen Z’s with a general and frequently used set of usage
classication: content contribution, information sharing, infor-
mation usage, searching for facts and data, online participation
and entertainment usability.
2.4 Gen Z’s and Social Media
ese social networking generations who ideally belong to the
segment of school to college students or comparatively fresh
entrant as manpower in organizations are frequently labeled as
technically innate and very style conscious of all previous gen-
erations. e need to be involved and informed to/with other
people is the main rationale behind the use of online socializ-
ing by Gen Z. ese Z’ers who are 14-25 years old have more
tendencies to prefer online social sites for communicate and
interact with people they know than other generations and are
happy and feel vital to provide active feedbacks and comments
about the brands/services/issues they use or one way or other
involved apart from this they value opinion given by other’s too
(eMarketer, 2011). Studies are there on Gen Z’s increasing usage
of social media but more has to be done on their social media
activities and its behavioural impact. is generation is a vigor-
ous contributor, high consumer of online content, creative and
mash-up experts; they have strong gravitational bond for online
communication that they prefer to participate and remain con-
nected via technology available at nger tips.
2.5 e Frame of Reference: Design and
Analysis
• Predecessors of Gen Z’s social media usage
Irrespective of similarities within generations that continue over
years, there are certain aspects that aect an individual’s accept-
ance process and his usage of social media. is section depicts
inuence of environmental and personal factors on Gen Z’s
social media usage.
• Environmentalfactors-Social media is aected by exter-
nal environmental factors like Political, Economical,
Technological, Cultural and Legal variables(PETCL
analysis), which diers across the countries respectively
and act as a direct or indirect inuencing agent on Gen
Model 1.

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Z’s social media usage; via putting eect on personal-
level factors (socio-economic, educational, occupation
etc). Somewhere dierences within these aspects across
the countries paves the way to conditions that encour-
ages or restrains social media usability, as depicted in
further.
• Personalfactors- Personal factors like social & economic
class, morals/choices, lifecycle stage, age-maturity, and
culture/subculture do play a key role in molding Gen
Z’s online accessibility pattern. Gen Z’s socio-economic
standing is clearly mirrored by edication, family
income, materialistic possessions in any geographical
area, will be crucially inuenced by the environmental
factors and prevailing governmental policies. e per-
sonal steady factors have a lasting impact on Gen Z’s
social networking use, individual’s personal objectives,
feelings and norms/personality/individuality can easily
inuence and be inuenced by their displayed online
behaviour in time.
ese wide ranging set of personal factors are out of our
scope of study and it is crucial to lay stress that these personal
factors are considered to be “dynamic” in nature. Distinguishing
the exceptional character-set for Gen Z is a tough call as the role
that social networking sites are playing in individual’s life by its
very nature progresses across the age & life-cycle stages. ough
for this generation their life-cycle stages can be a key element for
the types and intensity of social networking usage but at the same
time age may not act as an accurate indicator of life-cycle stage.
Gen Z from their very birth stage witnessed the rapid changing
face of technology, easily approachable education system, dispos-
able income, extremely supportive families which infused them
to be exible towards change, technical innate, excelling per-
formers, diverse, more persistent as task oriented.
Eect on individual - is paper brings forward the eects of
Gen Z’s and their social media usage and how it impacts them
as an individual, an organization and the society. We start with
probable favorable/ unfavorable eects of Gen Z’s and their
excessive social media use on an individual:
Favorableeects –
• Gen Z desires to explore and experience the virtual social
society and for the same uses social networking platform to
socialize. Social media networks like Face-book, Watsapp,
Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter can lead to identication, image
formation, maintenance and boosting up young member’s
social assets as their character are formed through what all
they post regarding themselves online and in return what
others post and assess about them.
• Social media uses also extends certain psychosomatic and
emotional comforts, now a days it is helping in strengthen-
ing the family and friendship bonds and taking care of rest of
the ancillary socializing needs which augments Gen Z’s self-
prestige. ese social platforms are providing the medium to
spread the positive physical and mental well being by eec-
tively and competently informing about health & nutrition,
spirituality, societal concerns to the younger population of
the world especially the developing nations at their nger
touch.
• Certain behavioural implications are also there as outcomes
of their social media usage like adventurous nature, infor-
mation disclosures online, security, condentiality, WOM
communiqué, online code/morals and so forth.
“Black view” or unfavorable eects
• Excessive use of social platforms is suspiciously inuencing
all basic aspects of individual level outcomes like psycho-
somatic, sentimental and physical well-being and societal
progress.
• Increasing reliance on social media technology for entertain-
ment, communication and even emotional gratication and
guidelines, poses some deliberate botherations regarding the
enduring eects of excessive- use on Gen Z’s psychological
health
• Gen Z’s believes in investments as the social asset or con-
tacts it maintains online, but this high online reliance have
serious negative repercussion. Too much sharing of personal
information over the virtual world in quest of social alia-
tion could invite undesired complications.
• e young generations “desire for popularity” on social net-
working results in spending more of their time online and
tend to unveil more information, which can misrepresent
close relationships.
• Even though being conscious about the possible risks asso-
ciated with social platform involvement like cyber stalking,
identity thes, harassment, cyber bullying etc there are very
less control over the access to one’s basic information on
social networking sites(securityaairs.co)
• Occasionally, individuals’ loss of condentiality is pined up
to organizational-level ramications like: companies access-
ing information from social networking sites in manpower
hiring process.
• “Addiction of Internet” is another concern and has its set
of negative eects. It is observed that adolescents sponta-
neously keep on checking their social media proles and
updates. Online plugged in activities denitely put a harm-
ful impact on young mind’s educational activities and rest
pattern, and tends to reduce their contribution in important

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real world activities resultant leading to dejection, solitude
and social apprehensions (Espinoza and Juvonen, 2011).
• ough social media can provide a short term cushioning
eect for active socialization but can deteriorate pre-existing
issues of socially-psychoneurotic harmful individuals who
do not realize the long-run costs that could be incurred.
2.6 Eects on Organizations
Companies such as Apple, Versace, Hidesign etc. give take on
social networking platforms as a prospective source of market
intellect and observe dierent social platform activities like fan
pages, online journals to gather important information related to
promoting their products. Now a day’s social media oers liberty
to build up better customer relationship management by promis-
ing customers to enlist with their products, by connecting with
other users and by encouraging online association with brand
groups and pages; thereby strengthening the brand equity and
increase customer equity.
However, with the extensive acceptance and use of social
media by Gen Z, organization that kindle commitment, focus
on relationship building and devise mutual value creation for
their customers stand apart to garner the signicant prots. In
developing nation like India with ample entrepreneurial skill
set use of social platform can help in innovating newer and
better business prototypes. ere are certain connotations for
consumer-employee relation and how organizations appoint,
administer and motivate its employees as their repercussions are
vital in service sector. Successfully managing gen next employees
and their synergy with other generational group of co- workers
and customers poses great challenge ahead, specically when it is
known that both the generations have dierence in attitudes and
techniques towards career objectives.
Now a day’s many organizations refer social networking
platforms for prospecting candidates sometimes to terminate
employees who indulge in objectionable information online –
though use of such condential information of employees may
be regarded as breach of his online privacy and could awfully
impact their output, well being and moralistic behaviour.
2.7 Eects on Society
Similar to positive and negative consequences at individual and
organizational levels; social media’s eect is also prevalent at soci-
etal level too. e positive sides such as many social networking
platforms like YouTube, Face-book, Watsapp and Twitter are now
a days following the trend to eciently broadcast awareness on
vital issues: health and hygiene, girl education, consumer aware-
ness, and other critical social issues, creating consciousness to
societies at large specically teenagers and youths. On the con-
trary, human beings tend to encounter negative set of emotions
and feelings like animosity, rage, grudges and resultant they react
online and oine respectively. us the mistreatment of social
platforms at an individual level could germ the seed for pertinent
legal protections to make sure public safety.
Hence, this generation’s usage of social networking activities
shall be heading to changes in societal measures and behaviour at
the social level in areas such as public and political commitment,
privateness and communal safety. In the public or civic-obliga-
tion, participation in certain social groups and communities (the
better India etc.) builds-in a form of social citizenship. ere
are media evidences advocating a positive eect of Gen next’s
Model 2. e Reference Framework: Predecessors and Outcomes of Social Media Usage by Gen Zer’s.

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social platform use on governmental/ constitutional issues as
well. During the recent BSF jawan’s video(2017) on Face-book
about diet problem and reected deeper malaise, the vast social
network united and formed class of young & old that provoked
immense country level anger and debate regarding the physical
and mental well being of national soldiers.
is generation expects externalities to respect their wish to
keep their personal life free and not to judge them on the basis
of their social media identities. However, for modern organiza-
tions auditing employees’ online social personality and utilizing
the content present there is becoming a common practice unless
strict regulations restrict them. Unfortunately, legislation is yet to
keep up with the swi paced online expansion.
Suggestions
• Very less literature is present with regards to the Gen Z and
their social networking activities and that too bring in cer-
tain questioning. e few released researches on this realm
focuses mainly on the US and UK , leaving behind other
countries with huge and vast-expanding Z’ers community,
where elements and activities of social-media usage can dif-
fer considerably.
• ese earlier researches likely to study students (high school
& colleges) whose behaviours displays a tendency to vary as
they go through the dierent phases of lifecycle.
• Some where a proper investigation on social media’s usage
background and consequences are missing.
e theoretical model illustrated above, summarizes the
predecessors as well as outcomes of Gen Z’s and its social media
usage, and our open viewpoints on the stated model oers an
outline for additional study.
2.8 Predecessors: Gen Z access to social media
• Environmental
ere was always a requirement of a proper research for
knowing cross-cultural and cross-country dierences/similari-
ties in dierent generations and how they use the social media.
is theoretical model presented here hypothesizes a number
of environmental aspects like PCETL whose eect can have a
straight spark on the class and intensity of social platform usage.
We need to think about certain mind tingling questions
• On what dierent aspects does social media usage uctu-
ate across the nations of the world? Can we understand the
characteristics of these uctuations?
• Are these aspects invariable and can they override interna-
tional boundaries?
• Are there any resemblances across the countries with respect
to Gen Z and social media? In spite the dierent environ-
mental factors existent what are the reasons for these
resemblances?
A set of answers are required for these and many such que-
ries for a cross nation’ social media usage pattern understanding
of Gen Z. ese environmental factors have incidental impact
on social media usage and also inuence the personal factors;
PETCL display a vital role in draing the morals and choices
related to virtual socializing world. us a cross- nation study
analyzing the inuence level of environmental factors on usabil-
ity of social media and could reason out to what extent and how
these factors involve personal level determinants of social media
adoption.
• Personal-level
Certain studies have compared and contrasted dierent
generations with each other, however, there is a possibility of con-
siderable diversity within Gen Z and from others with regards to
social media use due to certain personal aspects as depicted by
model:
• Earlier studies have been focused on selected subgroups (
students, job seekers) of Gen Z who may dier in age group
and stages of life span, resultant their preference for social
media can also dier.
• e specic trait of Gen Z that marks it out from older gen-
erations is its deep involvement with technology in their
very upbringing. ough very little information is available
about the steady morals, values and choices regarding the
social networking use. Studies are required to veil out Gen Z
qualities and gure out their roles in social media use.
• Investigation are required regarding how this generation’s
more transitory evolving aspects like objectives, feelings,
emotions and ethics impact and be impacted by their social
media usage.
Working further on these issues will nally help decision
makers and researchers to better gure out how Gen Z’s emo-
tional involvement with products, brand names or rms is related
to their social media use.
• Social media usage: Gen Z’s class & intensity of use
Recent researches with respect to Gen Z and social media is
bringing out focus on another important sphere gaining curios-
ity than past is dierent class and intensity of use of social media.
It is obvious from previous studies and theoretical evidences
that a max of social network users is just inactive viewers or con-
sumers of data rather than aggressive contributors of data.
However, attention on certain issues is required:
• e theoretical model states class and intensity of social
media usage by Gen Z, for which much of research is still
required. Do researchers nd any evident dierences amid
the subgroups & cultures mainly involved in each type of
use?
• ere is a need to nd out inter generational exchange of
Gen Z social platform usage with observing what the situ-

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ations are and to which extent this generations shares the
social media usage with other generations? Is there sharing
of technology with parents and grandparents at home?
• A strong need is there to gure out precisely how strongly
and what class of adoption this generation indulges into?
• e scope and magnitude of aliation between the class
and intensity of Gen Z’s social media adoption requires to
be investigated. Insight observation is required to nd out
the diversication in social networking activities that occur
between dierent set of Gen Z segments and who are active
users and others who engages in lesser class of activities.
• Finding the range of association between class and intensity
of use of two or more social platforms like Twitter associated
with Instagram.
Research answers to similar queries can provide an opening
iota for functioning of the social-media-use to build and evolve
parameters to measure it. ese measures are vital for identical
experimental tracking of various classes of social media usage
and their outcomes on individuals, organizations and humanity.
2.9 e Outcomes
Inadequate investigation attention has been devoted to the impact
of social media usage of Gen Z on their segment members’ social
character, psychosomatic inuence, overall well being, market-
relevant purchase and consumption behaviour including o and
on social platforms, WOM communication, brand and consumer
relationship building. A proper research of the characteristics
and degree of individual level inuence will denitely add to
current research literature. is research is also important for
addressing the actual signicance for organizations searching to
understand and trying to take advantage of Gen Z’ social media
interactions. Some questions addressed at dierent sections of
this paper pertaining dierent outcomes on organizations, indi-
vidual and society as a whole.
• A need to explore out the extent of consistency in online and
oine behaviour, individuality, tastes and characteristics of
Gen Z.
• e segment Gen Z customers who on social platforms
display acceptance or rejection for brands/ideas actually
indulge in buying or supporting them or boycotting these
brands/ ideas.
• What is the real time and long run inuence of WOM spread
on social platforms by this generation on its member seg-
ment or any other generation segment’ purchase behaviour
requires an understanding.
• Is the behaviour of Gen Z regarded as compliment or substi-
tute in nature with respect to eect of social media on them?
• Can the elements of play be used by marketers to build rela-
tionships with Gen Z?
• Enumerate the adequate ways for organizations to kick o
and aid the brand building social platform communities that
can promote brand equity as well as add to customer equity.
• Do marketers glean up private information from social plat-
forms to present more customized oerings?
• Finally exploring out the list of opportunities and threats
(SWOT) for the marketers targeting their brands via social
platforms to Gen Z.
Irrespective of Gen Z’s role as customers, an additional
important facet for organizations is their part as work-force. e
rst-level customer-handling positions in lot of organizations are
mostly to be commanded by members of this new generation;
therefore, administration requires a practical insight on how best
to absorb understanding regarding Gen Z social platform usage
into their man-powering game-plan and policies. ough there
are equal chances of inter generational dissimilarities across a
variety of work approaches, activities and values/ethics like for
eg. e 2011 Census Report shows 50% of Indian population falls
within the Gen Z population illustrating that in near future com-
panies will need to battle for Gen Z’s talents.
Various organizations have started to utilize social net-
working platforms internally to assist inter-communication,
associations and surpass to evolve an involved and dedicated
workforce. ese Gen Z work-forces have been grown up in a
digitization era, are most keen to use social networking platform
to share thoughts, facts and involve them individually and pro-
ciently online.
Hence, investigation is required to focus on questions posed
here:
• How do organizations use social platforms to advocate col-
laborations among work-force and augment their synergy
with customers?
• Finding out the impact of admitting or banning work-force’
from using social media platform for their personal benet
during oce time?
• Does the interaction between segment of Gen Z workers and
customers or colleagues dierent from their interaction with
other generation customers/ colleagues.
• What are the implications of above mentioned on human
resource training, HR practices, as well as code regarding the
access of social networking platforms at work?
ere is a shortage of published literature regarding inter-
generational synergy in the background of social media usage,
focusing on these questions would demand a qualitative inves-
tigation to lay a foundation for quantitative epilogue research.
e individual-level eects of social media platform usage
by Gen Z’s, in return, inuence organizational outcomes also.
Similarly, collective individual-level outcomes give rise to

116
The Generation Z and their Social Media Usage: A Review and a Research Outline
Vol 9 | Issue 2 | Ap ri l-Jun e 2 01 7 | www.informaticsjournals.com/index.php/gjeis GJEIS | Print ISSN: 0975-153X | Online ISSN: 0975-1432
huge, societal concerns with probable civic-code repercussions.
Exactly, the “black view” of Gen Z and their social platform usage
for societal cause demands to be investigated. Long-term studies
are also required to explore:
• e end long impact of social platforms on the overall well-
being of Gen Z.
• What tactics could assist in reducing exploitation of social
networking platforms?
• How social norms can be changed regarding condentiality,
stated the “never overlooking” attribute of the internet?
• e repercussions of Gen Z labeled as “out warders” and
possessing an individual identication that is mutually cre-
ated by friends on social network?
• Which authorized, technical and ocial regulations are
essential to reduce the negative inuence of the “black view”
on Gen Z?
• Lastly can any online crusade aid to educate the generation
next for ecient, safe and responsible usage of social net-
working?
3. Conclusion
Authors anticipate this analysis will encourage decision mak-
ers and civic-policy framers to recognize and evolve product/
service novelty that are favorable to individuals, organizations
and society. Active usage of social media platform has already
changed the virtual bazaar, the place of work and the society;
this will gradually pave way to develop innovative commerce
models, products and techniques. However, some questions are
there concerning how Gen Z and their use of social media will
shape individual, organizations and societal outcomes in dier-
ent situations. Marketing analysts are invited to explore certain
questions that authors have tried to identify through this paper
and think the answers could help the customers, decision makers
and civic policy framers.
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Citation:
Gyan PrakashYadav and Jyotsna Rai
“e Generation Z and their Social Media Usage: A Review and a Research Outline”,
Global Journal of Enterprise Information System. Volume-9, Issue-2, April-June, 2017. (http://informaticsjournals.com/index.php/gjeis)
Conict of Interest:
Author of a Paper had no conict neither nancially nor academically.