Hear, and now!
We want less chaos, new polls reveal. Stability, marketers say, is "the new luxury."
We are living in an age of chaos and baffling velocity. There’s a growing desire for security, and for “more leaders willing to listen before they speak,” says John Della Volpe, Director of Polling at Harvard’s Institute of Politics.
NEW YORK—We need to slow down.
That’s what a variety of leading pollsters are hearing right now from a majority of Americans, young and old.
“We’ve had nearly 30 years of constant innovation and political and technological disruption. But lately, something else has emerged from our collective digital and political fatigue,” says Amy Lanzi, the CEO of Digitas North America. According to a recent Digitas and Vox Media poll of American consumers, many of us are bewildered, and desperately seeking respite from relentless change. “Across generations, 72% of people now prefer stability, consistency and familiar routines” over frequent innovation and change.
“It’s not about looking for the good old days,” Lanzi says. Americans “just want a chance to catch their collective breath while they absorb the flurry of information surrounding the rapid changes which have already woven their way into our daily lives.”
Bewildered
Gen Zers, pollsters say, are scrambling to make sense of it all. Like most people, they want financial stability, says Harvard’s 2025 Youth Poll, an annual exploration of young people’s attitudes about the world. No surprise there.
But what makes this year’s just-released survey unique, according to Director John Della Volpe, is the surge of responses citing “the unstable nature of many things, all at once”—work, finances, relationships, politics and government.
Maybe it’s still a hangover from the pandemic, Della Volpe says—or maybe it’s about what 90% of American consumers surveyed recently by Digitas say is the way today’s most popular news and social media content can make us feel more politically and irreversibly agitated, uncertain and divided. Or, Lanzi says, maybe it’s about how 75% of the younger Americans feel increasingly disconnected from older generations, “and increasingly distrust traditional institutions.”
Whichever, Gen Zers—especially—are becoming impatient. “As young Americans continue to lose faith in government institutions, the need for politicians and business leaders to listen to and learn from young people has never been greater,” says Jordan Schwartz, the Student Chair of the Youth Poll project. Della Volpe says that “as the nation confronts generational turnover and an increasingly volatile political climate, what Gen Z needs isn’t another lecture, but genuine recognition of its struggles and leaders willing to listen before they speak.”
Survey Highlights
The Digitas/Vox Media survey, Controlling the Chaos: Finding Stability in the Innovation Era, says Americans, especially Gen Zers, have “eroding trust in government and institutions” and are now “demanding even more from brands—transparency, security, and authenticity.” For marketers, the survey says, this is a make-or-break moment. “Brands which provide stability—consistent and permanent attributes over time while embracing innovation—will shine and build lasting loyalty; those which can’t will fade into the noise.”
Other take-aways from the latest Digitas/Vox Media consumer survey and Harvard’s 2025 Youth Poll suggest optimism about the future is also fading:
More than 4 in 10 young Americans under 30 are barely getting by financially, with women and non-college youth hit the hardest. Women, the Harvard poll says, are experiencing a gender wage gap, and half of young adults without a college degree said they have a tougher time finding jobs with adequate pay compared to 29% of college graduates.
Traditional family milestones are being put on hold. Only half (48%) of young Americans now say having kids is important—the lowest ranking among six life goals measured. Fear of the immediate future is woven into some of that sentiment, pollsters say. Marriage also is being delayed, with just 57% of Gen Zers now saying they want it, and political divisions are reshaping romantic relationships for a majority of young women (53%), compared to 42% of young men. [The gap is even wider across party lines, according to the Harvard’s Institute of Politics, with 70% of Democrats valuing political alignment with a partner versus 48% of Republicans and 39% of independents.]
Less than half of Americans now feel a sense of community—and only 17% say they're deeply connected to one. Nearly 1 in 3 feel no strong sense of belonging or are still searching for it—yet the Digitas survey said more Gen Zers are beginning to find resilience in new ways by building “connection loops” to “transform individual anxiety into collective creativity” for social good. “The present-day rise in political protests is building a greater sense of belonging,” the survey says.
Just 15% of the Gen Zers in the Harvard survey say the country is headed “in the right direction.” Fewer than 1 in 3 of young people now approve of President Trump or Congress. Meanwhile, Gen Z’s approval of Democrats in Congress has also plummeted — by half since 2020. But Trump’s gains with young voters “are now the very ones showing the most volatility,” Della Volpe says.
Three-quarters of the Digitas/Vox Media survey participants, regardless of age, politics, region or background, agree that political and economic anxiety cuts across traditional divides, uniting rural conservatives and urban progressives in a shared experience of financial vulnerability.
Two-thirds of Americans surveyed by Digitas/Vox Media said they haven’t abandoned traditional dreams, but they’ve lost faith in traditional institutions to deliver them. This, Lanzi says, explains why so many younger Americans are simultaneously embracing alternative systems—from cryptocurrency and the creator economy to side hustles.
New Rules
“The stories we tell about ourselves and the world become the lenses through which we see reality,” says Digitas’ Lanzi. When 77% of Gen Z in the U.S. feels disconnected from a lot of today’s messaging about politics and the economy, she added, “we need new narratives that re-connect and re-engage.”
Della Volpe says he began the annual Harvard Youth Poll because not enough young people were participating in politics. “This generation of young people hasn’t seen America united and now is insisting on greater stability, and to be heard.”
“Stability is the new luxury,” Lanzi says. “It is now being sought by most people—and brands and organizations need to hear this.”
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Thanks for the overview, Marcia. There is a greater need than ever to bridge the growing generational divide. Older and younger people share many of the same sentiments, but they both need to get out of their generational bubbles and listen to each other.