There's something I don't really understand about my students.
To be honest, there's a lot of things about Gen Z that I don't understand. For one thing, I don't really get why they care about the whole "Gen Z" thing. When I ask friends my own age they impart only a vague sense that they actually belong to a generation, and just a few of them seem to know that it has a name. "X," if you're curious. (That was supposed to be a place-holder until we figured out something better, but we never got around to it.)
I suspect all the attention to Gen Z's generation has to do with where they keep their identities - and that relates to the way they think about happiness. Not necessarily how they're happy, but where happiness is.
Our identities are always shaped by other people. But I think there's a subtle shift going on. Living so tied to tech, younger people's identities are not just being shaped by others. They are getting a little more shared with other people. As people spend more time measuring themselves - and things like happiness - through one another's eyes.
And this is the source of the fear of missing out on what other people are doing: it's less the experience that people are worried about missing, than the recognition of it from others.
As I've pointed out in Fifty Ways to Be Happy, not all types of happiness are compatible with one another. You can't feel schadenfreude and loving-kindness at the same time.
But can you lose yourself in a moment of beauty while also have your picture taken in it? I found out, the hard way, one day not long ago in Laos. You can read all about it here.