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Gen Zers Are Too Scared for Public Speaking… After Years of Zoom Schooling During the Pandemic

by Richard Eldred
22 October 2023 7:00 PM

Generation Z’s confidence has waned during the pandemic, leading to fewer young adults feeling self-assured in public speaking, according to polling data shared with MailOnline. Here’s how the article begins:

Polling carried out by Survation suggests 35.32% of 18-24 year-olds are less confident speaking in public than they were before the global health catastrophe.

Elocution experts believe that many Gen Zers – who would have been aged between 14 and 20 when the pandemic first broke out – have been robbed of formative experiences like giving talks in front of classmates, with most of their communication skills established on video calls during lockdown.

As a result of the years-long gap in their development, experts fear they could suffer professionally or academically, coming up short against older candidates in job interviews or dropping grades in group presentations at school or university.

Experts have called for employers – already using perks like free food to try to coax Gen Z out of their bedrooms and into the office – to give younger workers help with their communication skills to prevent them from becoming a ‘lost generation’.

The Survation poll, commissioned by public speaking agency Speak With Impact, found that around 20% of 18-24 year-olds were “much less confident” in their speaking skills compared with before the pandemic, while 15% were “slightly less confident”.

Gen Z – people born between the middle to late 1990s and the early 2010s – were the only age group to record a net negative score, meaning the relative majority are less confident than they were before. 

In other age groups from 25 to 64, a slim majority of people said they had gained confidence in speaking in front of an audience over Covid; the biggest rise in confidence was among the over-65s.

Gavin Brown, founder of Speak With Impact, told MailOnline he commissioned the survey after hearing a growing number of stories of young people lacking confidence to speak in public.

Mr. Brown said: “We’ve got a real challenge there, for that age group – who were at the tail end of school, some of them probably in the early years of work or university depending on what they did.

“This is a group of people that has never really spoken in public before – and while others have said they’re worried about being back in a room speaking, these are people that have never been in the room at all.

“They’ve not been through those early public speaking experiences at school, or at university, or in your first job, where you make mistakes but you learn quite quickly.

“When you are in the room, all eyes are on you, and you can’t see that all eyes are on you when you’re on Zoom.

“If your formative years were spent doing it on Zoom or Teams, and you’re suddenly going into the room for the first time, that’s probably pretty nerve-wracking.

“It’s not learning to speak in the room again. It’s learning to speak in the room full stop.”

Worth reading in full.

Tags: Covid responseGen ZLockdown harmsMental HealthPandemicYoung People

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8 Comments
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transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago

Sadly the parents of school-age children that I know recognise that terrible damage has been done but have not joined the dots and seem to “blame the Tories” without realising Labour would have been worse and that the folly and evil were global. I don’t have the energy most of the time to try and wake people up. I have very few friends left as it is.

62
-2
WyrdWoman
WyrdWoman
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

I’ve noticed a marked tendency to mollycoddle them even more, potentially leading to even more issues as they get older. It’s only the few sparky kids (like our Jack Watson) with parents willing to stretch them who will be able to fully face the challenges of the future.

41
0
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  WyrdWoman

My advice to my friend was to get informed, get angry and educate her teenagers regarding the wicked ways of the world

I don’t think I convinced her

26
0
Scunnered
Scunnered
1 year ago
Reply to  transmissionofflame

You can’t save everyone ToF; we’re focusing on what we can control, leaving the rest to it.

6
0
Beachwordsmith
Beachwordsmith
1 year ago

If you’re going to promote free speech, you need people to find the courage to speak up, but I’m not sure schools have ever been that keen on encouraging public speaking.

The UK Speechwriters’ Guild is organising a special conference for people who want to improve their public speaking and knowledge of speechwriting on Saturday 18 November in London. Students only have to pay £25 to attend.

It will include a presentation on the genius of Donald Trump, the history fo protest banners and how Shakespeare can improve your public speaking. Lockdown sceptics very welcome!

https://ukspeechwritersguild.co.uk/events/the-london-brilliant-communicators-conference/

22
-5
transmissionofflame
transmissionofflame
1 year ago
Reply to  Beachwordsmith

“genius of Donald Trump”

I am surprised it hasn’t been no-platformed”

21
-5
DS99
DS99
1 year ago
Reply to  Beachwordsmith

Thank you for supplying this info – (not sure why your comment would attract five downticks, particularly at this early hour … I’m assuming any mention of Donald Trump is to be punished?)

8
0
mariawarmth
mariawarmth
1 year ago
Reply to  DS99

Thx for link
”I am not sure schools have ever been that keen on promoting public speaking ”
I can say from 18 years working in high schools, and lockdown made it worse; they haven’t encouraged this unless it is promotion of political or cultural bias.
However more worryingly is that the debate questions that are part of your event would never be posed in the predominant left leaning Uk education system !!!
Therefore any positive suggestion about alternative political ideology is on purpose suppressed and omitted from student discourse.
In addition I work along side 22 to 24 year old TAs and on the contrary they will speak confidently in public and post frequently with great enthusiasm about all the lefts pet virtue signalling global policies.
gender ideology TAs love speaking publicly about it!
man made climate change .. TAs they love speaking publicly about it!
misogyny TAs they love speaking publicly about it!
being vegetarian they TAs love speaking about it !
Colonialism TAs love speaking about it !
white privilege they love speaking about it!
poor George Floyd they love him!
saving lives by mask and jab action TAs they love speaking about it!

and more speech but especially in the staff room
so don’t underestimate gen Z as TAs and future teachers and teachers to not be confident to speak and especially educate the next generation in the ideological mantra.
They can and they do.
Gen Z can speak publicly about left wing ideology just fine but don’t know any alternative.

4
0

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