The Global Loneliness Crisis & Gen Z Pet Peeves

Bruce Anthony: Are you lonely? Why is that, and why are there certain things that Gen Z is saying You can’t say to them, we’re gonna get into it. Let’s get it.

Bruce Anthony: Welcome, first of all, welcome. This is Unsolicited Perspectives. I’m your host, Bruce Anthony. Here to lead the conversation in important events and topics that are shaping today’s society. Join the conversation to follow us wherever you get your audio podcast. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for our video podcast and YouTube exclusive content rate review.

[00:01:00] Like, comment, share, share with your friends, share with your family. Hell even share with your enemies. On today’s episode, it’s the sibling happy hour. I’m here with my sis Jay, Andrea. We’re gonna be dilly dad a little bit, and then we’re gonna be talking about this epidemic of loneliness that’s spreading across not just the nation, but the world.

And then we’re gonna be talking about Gen Z versus everybody, but that’s enough of the intro. Let’s get to the show.

Bruce Anthony: What up sis?

Bruce Anthony: I can call it.

All right, so I got a couple of things I need to get off my chest.

Bruce Anthony: Somebody literally asked me a couple of days ago, Hey, where can I find the YouTube exclusive stuff?

Bruce Anthony: Yes. Somebody literally asked me, Hey, where can I find the YouTube exclusive stuff

Bruce Anthony: [00:02:00] that, that I looked them dead in the face, and I was like, uh, uh. What do you mean? Like, I, I don’t know where I can find it. I said, it’s, it’s right there. And the words that you said.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, but where can I find the YouTube exclusive stuff

on YouTube?

Bruce Anthony: Oh, well how can I get to it? I mean, we’ve got a whole website. Y’all have a website? Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: Yep. You could do all of that. Uh,

Bruce Anthony: so this person contacted me. He was like, oh, I found it. I was like, yeah. ‘cause there’s a whole playlist that says YouTube’s. YouTube made it a podcast that’s on YouTube. So YouTube, you can listen and watch podcasts on YouTube. So our podcast is already on YouTube. YouTube labeled our YouTube exclusive stuff as another podcast.

And I was like, you know what? I’m gonna just roll with it.

Bruce Anthony: [00:03:00] We are here. And I looked up on there because I was like, how many YouTube exclusives have we done? It’s 40, there’s over 400 minutes of content on our YouTube channel. Exclu exclusively

Bruce Anthony: YouTube. It’s like YouTube. It’s like almost eight hours worth of content.

It’s probably is equivalent to eight hours. ‘cause I’m saying roughly 400 ‘cause it’s 40 and sometimes some of ‘em are like 20 minutes long. So I was like, wow, we, we pump out a lot of content.

Bruce Anthony: Content that you didn’t ask to pump out.

Bruce Anthony: Oh, hold on. No, no, no, no, no. This was somebody who listens to this. This isn’t somebody like I know personally.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. No, this was somebody that dmd me.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was somebody that DMed me. But I do have somebody who contacted me personally and said this. I really like your podcast. I watch it every day on TikTok.

[00:04:00] I said, huh, no, you can’t get our podcast on TikTok. Yeah, no. I watch it every day.

Bruce Anthony: no. What are you watching is a minute clip. A minute. TikTok from a 60 minute show.

Bruce Anthony: That’s random. That are just random. I mean, not random. Yeah. I mean,

Bruce Anthony: right.

Bruce Anthony: I don’t know what it would be.

It wouldn’t just be us starting in the middle of a thought, not finishing it.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: [00:05:00] Yes. I was like, no, that’s, that’s not the podcast. That is one minute of a 60 minute, sometimes 60 minute plus show. Oh, really? Because then they said, you and your sister should argue more. Y’all agree on too much. And I was like, uh, if you watch the podcast,

Bruce Anthony: yeah. We don’t all, I mean, we do tend to agree the majority of the time.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, that’s it. That’s the show. I was like, I was like, me and her get into it. Matter of fact, there’s been a couple of times we’ve gotten into, into it that other people were like, are y’all okay? And it was like, yeah, we’re fine. Yeah, we’re good. Yeah, we’re good.

Bruce Anthony: threw a couple at her head and it bounced across the room and you know, she still loved me.

Bruce Anthony: Every bounce across the room.

Bruce Anthony: I can’t say it is just people contacting me. That’s dumb. ‘cause I did something dumb

Bruce Anthony: last night. Not in the drunken stupor, but in kind of like a buzz stupor. I, I broke the case to my iPhone. The case is a, it surrounds the entire phone, but the part that covers the actual touching part of your phone, the part that you watch is temper glass, crack that bad boy, right?

And so I was like, oh, how bad is it? Crack? So I was taking the, the protective part. Take the piece apart and cracked it even more. I was like, oh, this is real glass. I thought this wasn’t real, real glass. No, it’s real. Yeah, it’s real glass. And so I was like, okay, it should be fine. And then started using my phone and I was like, Nope, this piece of glass has been stuck on my finger.

[00:07:00] Got order a new one. So in that late night haze that I ordered, probably like 11, 11 30, literally before the lights are about to go off, uh, no, the lights are off. Literally before I’m about to turn off my phone, well get off my phone. I order a replacement. Replacement’s supposed to be here. My place 7:00 AM 11:00 AM It’s 2:11 AM I’m like, bet you know I won’t.

I won’t like cut up my finger. This is all good.

Bruce Anthony: Woke up this morning. It had been delivered to another address

Bruce Anthony: and this is the second time over a span of four or five months that I’ve done something like this. When I was in Atlanta for New Year’s, I ordered a whole bunch of stuff from goPuff. And was mad, like, why haven’t they delivered it yet?

And I checked my phone and they had absolutely delivered it to my place in Washington, DC

Bruce Anthony: it would help if we didn’t have 17 addresses, but I don’t want to say too much ‘cause I don’t think we really supposed to be sharing an Amazon account. So sh

Bruce Anthony: I don’t think it’s a problem either.

Bruce Anthony: They might.

Bruce Anthony: Dumb people.

Bruce Anthony: For those that don’t know, I’m a junior, so that means this person reached out to my father

Bruce Anthony: and, and we look almost like twins. So even if you just click on the profile, you’re like, yeah, that’s Bruce. No, that’s not me. That person is 20 plus years older than me, but is aging well. And I’m aging as I’m aging.

So I guess, I guess it’s an easy thing to,

Bruce Anthony: [00:09:00] yeah, yeah, yeah. Please return that to Amazon. I want a new one so that, I think it’s downstairs right now. So when I’m done with this, I go downstairs.

Bruce Anthony: I got a bunch of stuff being delivered today ‘cause I needed some body wash, some toothpaste and some mouthwash. You know, all stuff that essential.

Bruce Anthony: Uh, why we boycott? Look, I told you like I can boycott a lot, but Amazon is where I draw the line. It is, it’s too much. Amazon is too important to my life. You know, I’m not gonna cut out Michael Jackson. I’m not gonna stop listening to Bad Boy, and I’m not gonna stop listening to Amazon. Okay? I mean, I using Amazon, so yes, no, I’m, I’m still using Amazon.

He ain’t, he ain’t even really tied to Amazon like that no more.

Bruce Anthony: No, they reneged.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, what, uh, what we were about to talk about is Amazon was about to show the tariff, the, the reason why the price increases and the direct correlation with tariffs and the administration threw a fit and Amazon backed down. He called, uh, Jeffrey personally

Bruce Anthony: and they backed down.

So, yeah, no, uh, but no, I’m not gonna boycott.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, I mean, I, I wish they hadn’t backed down, but they backed down. You know, there’s one thing that I can say about a certain population in this country. They soft as hell. They like to claim that they’re strong and, but they are soft. They will bend to the knee where other people in this country from different walks of life will never bend to the knee.

Well, generally speaking, there are certain elements of that population. I am talking about us.

Bruce Anthony: Okay. I’m just gonna go ahead and say, I’m talking about us. There are certain people in our population that will bend to knee, uh, case in point, uh, blacks for Trump.

Bruce Anthony: so they will

Bruce Anthony: Okay. But I don’t, I don’t think they will. But no, Amazon,

Bruce Anthony: did she?

Bruce Anthony: Well, that’s good ‘cause she’s still fine. And I want to be a fan of hers. Again, I, I hate, I hate when I can’t be fans of fine women. I’m like,

Bruce Anthony: okay, all right.

Bruce Anthony: She found her way back. Okay. All.

Bruce Anthony: Roscoe is barking, ladies and gentlemen because

Bruce Anthony: mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: Right. And that person opened the door. ‘cause I heard the charm go off and I say it all the time. I say it all the time. This person that we are talking about specifically trying to sabotage the the show because every time that we’re recording or doing something, they somehow interrupt the recording.

Love this person with all of my heart would give my life with her is the only person I would actually go to jail for. But it’s consistently sabotaging the recording of this show.

Bruce Anthony: [00:13:00] It is comedic. It’s comedic though. It’s comedic with the timing. Like every time, ladies and gentlemen, if y’all watch the behind the scenes or pay attention to the after hours, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. ‘cause I don’t cut that out. I leave it in the behind the scenes, which by the way, on the YouTube show, if you finish watching all the way to the end, as soon as I say I’ll holler, there’s a whole segment behind the scenes.

Sometimes it’s two or three minutes of us being raw and uncut. Y’all should check that out too. We’re little self involved here, but you finished your second semester of grad school.

Bruce Anthony: Oh Lord Jesus. Okay.

Bruce Anthony: Of course they are. Of course they are.

Bruce Anthony: You better,

Bruce Anthony: you better get you a, a poppy, uh, soft drink and put some caffeine into this something. By the way, I’m a huge fan of Poppy.

Bruce Anthony: Poppy is the probiotic Soft drinks that tastes Nah, I Ali Pop. I don’t know. I didn’t hear the Ali in there. I just see Poppy, P-O-P-P-I.

Bruce Anthony: No, that’s not what I’m talking about.

Bruce Anthony: Oh, I, how much is, how much is Ali Pop? Because Poppy is kind of expensive.

Bruce Anthony: [00:15:00] Yeah. That’s the same thing as Poppy. I, you know where I found

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Poppy. Poppy. Well, I like Poppy ‘cause I, I love it when they call me Big Pop.

Bruce Anthony: It’s true. No, but I got my little poppy grape. It tastes like Welch’s grape with a little bit of tequila in there. It’s good. It’s settle in my stomach. I feel good. ‘cause I just had some chicken wings and it was a little iffy ‘cause it was Cajun.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: And look as you get older, ladies and gentlemen, this is disgusting. But as you get older, ladies and gentlemen

Bruce Anthony: is the key.

Bruce Anthony: I know a person one time thought they was having a heart attack. They just needed a fart.

Bruce Anthony: Oh, that note, ladies and gentlemen, we gonna get into loneliness next.

Bruce Anthony: Jay? You laughed when I brought this up and I was like, I wanna talk about this. You didn’t realize it was an epidemic, did you?

Bruce Anthony: No. It’s

Bruce Anthony: right. No, but it’s literally. Epidemic. So the US Surgeon General and the World Health Organization have declared

Bruce Anthony: loneliness and social isolation, a public health epidemic affecting people of all ages and backgrounds. Loneliness is the distressing feeling from perceived isolation or unmet social needs, distant from simply being alone.

[00:17:00] So what does that mean, ladies and gentlemen? And how did this become an epidemic? Well, nearly one in two adults in the us, one in two, so 50%, uh, have reported experience loneliness, making it as widespread as smoking, diabetes, and or anxiety.

Bruce Anthony: No, I just wonder. It was a, it was a dramatic, yeah, it was a dramatic pause. It was a dramatic pause. In 2024, about two and five Americans said they deal with loneliness. Sometimes us, sometimes, usually, or all the time. Hold on. So 40% of the population said they deal with it. Sometimes,

Bruce Anthony: or usually,

Bruce Anthony: or all the time.

Bruce Anthony: [00:18:00] 30% of adults feel loneliness at least once a week. 10% say they are lonely every day. Young adults, 18 to 34 are especially affected with 34% reporting loneliness every day or several times a week. Now when I, when I read out those statistics and I give you those statistics, can you see why, uh.

Organizations like the Health, uh, the World Health Organization and the US Surgeon General is saying, no, no, no, no, no. This is an epidemic.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: [00:19:00] We gonna get into that. We gonna get into that. But I remember a FA friend telling me, with tears in her eyes, she says, I know I’m not alone, but I feel alone.

Bruce Anthony: And I was like, well, if you opened up to talk to people a little bit more than it probably wouldn’t feel alone if you wasn’t so closed off that, you know, you probably wouldn’t feel alone.

It sounded like to me that you need to take a, the need to take some therapy, talk to a therapist about your situation. But yeah, loneliness is not the same as being alone. I, I had to tell people there are people sometimes. ‘cause you know, the last couple of years has been a little different, but for the most part over the last, I don’t know, seven, eight years, basically, ever since y’all moved down to Atlanta, I’ve spent Christmas and Thanksgiving by myself.

I like it that way. My parents are not together anymore. I’m not going to split between them. It’s a hassle. So I see them beforehand and leave the day to myself. It’s typically a day that I plan out on Thanksgiving or Christmas. I drink a bottle of Crown Royal or Bourbon

Bruce Anthony: [00:20:00] sometimes. One time I did drink the whole bottle. I drank, I drank from 12.

Bruce Anthony: But that was the goal though. No, it was the goal. I drank from 12 in the afternoon to two o’clock in the morning. And actually, if you think about it, there’s only so many shots that are in the bottle, and when you mixing it with a mixer, it’s, it’s somebody who’s six foot 4, 250 pounds can easily do that and, and feel fine.

Especially if they’re eating heavy food like Thanksgiving or Christmas food. I stop giving me that look. Okay. I just wanted to do it anyway. So I remember telling people and they were like, oh, that’s so sad that you, you, you know you’re gonna be feeling lonely. I was like, no, the hell I’m not. I was like, being alone and feeling lonely are two different things.

I crave being alone. I’m not lonely.

Bruce Anthony: right.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

I might be surrounded by people physically and be incredibly lonely. So it, it, they’re not one in the same at all, but they often get conflated. Just ‘cause I’m by myself doesn’t mean I’m lonely. I could be surrounded by people and feel com, uh, completely unseen or, or disconnected.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, so you brought up the health risk factors.

Bruce Anthony: [00:22:00] What are their health risk? Cons? Consequences, loneliness increases the risk of premature death by 26. Percent and social isolation by 29%. The health impact is equivalent to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day greater than the risk from obesity or physical inactivity

Bruce Anthony: associated with a 29% increase in the risk of heart disease.

A 32% increased risk of stroke and a 50% greater chance of developing dementia among older individuals. This is all linked to higher rates of anxiety, depression, and even suicide. So when somebody is telling you they feel lonely,

Bruce Anthony: pay attention to them. Because if you think you would comment on somebody who’s smoking 15 cigarettes a day, you would comment on somebody gorging on food, constantly gaining weight and saying, Hey, yo, you know, your diabetes, your cholesterol, your blood sugar, all that’s gonna go up.

Are you okay? Do you need some help? When somebody says that they are lonely, not alone, lonely, it’s a big issue.

Bruce Anthony: So what are the, go ahead.

Right. Because you’re not out there around people building up immunities to things. It makes you more vulnerable to infections and slower recovery from illnesses. I mean, there’s, you don’t think about it. But there is like a chronic stress associated with loneliness and social isolation.

Bruce Anthony: [00:24:00] Yeah, because it’s a feeling just like the, just like anxiety, overwhelming anxiety can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, like loneliness is, is a feeling and affects people the same way. So parents, when your kids say to you, they might not even know, they might not say loneliness.

They might say they feel alone, which is equivalent if you don’t, if you can’t contextualize the difference between. Being alone in loneliness, they might say, I feel alone, which means the majority of the time they feel loneliness. That’s not something to say, well go out there and make some friends.

That’s not helping them.

Bruce Anthony: Yes.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

[00:25:00] And I, I, it was funny that you mentioned like the issues about cognitive decline and dementia. Yeah. You can’t just be by yourself talking to yourself. Now, I have some good conversations

Bruce Anthony: been having some dope conversations with myself. Yeah.

You need to interact with people, that can help reduce the risk of cognitive decline in dementia.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. People out here not doing Sudoku, you and your bed playing Sudoku is not gone. This is not gonna get it done. Okay. That’s not enough.

Bruce Anthony: Alright, so for those people out there that are saying, you know, those are their, those are other people’s problems, that’s their problems. That has nothing to do with me.

[00:26:00] Okay? Lemme explain to you how it does. There are economic and social costs to loneliness. Loneliness costs US employers and estimated 154 billion annually due to stress related AP absenteeism, job turnover, and reduced productivity. Social isolation among older adults alone leads to 6.7 billion and excess Medicare spending each year.

Lower academic achievement and worse performance at work also are linked to loneliness and isolation. So some of those kids that are struggling in school, they’re not dumb. Some of them. I’m learning as I get became an adult. No, some of them are absolutely dumb, but some of ‘em are not dumb. They just feel lonely.

Bruce Anthony: They feel alone.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. So people out there thinking, this doesn’t pertain to me at all. Yeah, it does. ‘cause it costs. So what are the causes and the modern trends?

Bruce Anthony: So increased mobility, people move more often for work, school or retirement. Disrupting social networks. What we were talking about earlier, you got to have your crew to, did you get vent to go to happy hour?

[00:28:00] Do things with, there’s also been a digital shift. More interactions happen online with less face-to-face contact, especially post pandemic. That is an issue with IIC and Gen Z and later Gen Alpha.

Bruce Anthony: I don’t know what gen Alpha’s gonna be like, but these kids really don’t be interacting a whole lot. I saw a statistic that young Tender are looking out, young Tinder are looking towards older men because younger men lack the interpersonal communicational skills that older men have because older men such as myself, but I’m not messing with no young tenders, older men such as myself because we grew up without texting, having to call on the phone.

[00:29:00] Mac, speak to Ms. Pearl before I could speak to Lisa. How you doing Ms. Pearl? How you doing today? Yeah. No, mom is doing good. Dad is doing good. Yeah. Okay. I, June Berg is doing that. Okay. That’s, is Lisa around? Yes ma’am. I mean, they don’t know nothing about that. So, uh, digital. Age is really effective stuff.

Okay. Social media, while it connects people virtually, it often reduces meaningful live interactions and increased feelings of inadequacy, especially among teens. The COVID-19 pandemic intensified isolation by cutting off in-person support systems and routine and routines. Younger people now spend 70% less time in face-to-face socialization with peers compared to two decades ago.

That’s exactly what I was just talking about.

Bruce Anthony: It. It literally, your whole world is what happens at school.

Bruce Anthony: So I was in a spirited debate with a person that said this was a consequence.

Bruce Anthony: No. ‘cause I don’t fight. You know, me, I don’t fight. I do spirited debates where I listen to the other side and I’d be like, well that’s dumb. Uh, it’s honestly, this is what I do. I may not say it out loud all the time, but it’s definitely what I’m thinking the majority of the time.

And, but, but. The person had a very valid point because they were talking about essentially this thing that kids were absolutely affected from the lockdown. And, but their argument was that’s why the lockdown didn’t need to happen.

Bruce Anthony: [00:31:00] And I was like, okay, it’s not quite that simple. People were dying and then their argument was, well, people die.

And I was like, oh, that’s pretty stupid. So

Bruce Anthony: if, if there are fires that are raging all over a certain place, kind of like what’s happening in California and where this person is from, then we shouldn’t try to help those people not burn up from the fires. Well, no, that’s not what I’m saying. I said No, that’s exactly what you’re saying.

There are gonna be some consequences for the lockdown. And unfortunately the kids were absolutely affected. I don’t know what the long-term effects are going to be, but there was a meme that was going around and it was, remember in high school. Maybe even in middle school where you would have like science lab and they would have these big long like tables that you had to stand up, but they were still tables that you did like labs on.

[00:32:00] And it was big enough to fit like six to eight people. And the meme said, this is where I’ve had some of the greatest conversations and met some of the funniest people. And then also the lunch table. Like those are really, really, you don’t realize it at the time. Really, really important for developing your communication skills.

And a lot of these kids don’t have ‘em. And even now that they’re back in school, I don’t know necessarily that they are doing that. I think that they still will get together in groups and get on their phone and start texting other folks instead of sitting around each other in a circle, just chopping it up like we used to back in the day.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

[00:33:00] Like that’s that kind of even, you know, superficial connection. It still enhances the experience, but now it’s mostly people watching things through their phone as they’re recording the thing. it’s more about showing that you were there as opposed to like being present

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: I.

Bruce Anthony: I think I told you the story when I went to the Janet Jackson concert, that at first I was doing exactly that ‘cause I was filming so much of it. ‘cause there is a part of it that I want to capture. Right? I was filming so much of it, I kept raising on my phone for each start of a new song and then I was just like, why am I watching this through my phone?

[00:34:00] I’m here, I’m seven rows away from Janet Jackson and I said, you know what? I got enough stuff, memories on my phone from this. Let me just be here and be present. And it, I had a greater experience just, just doing that. Alright, but who is most at risk for this epidemic of loneliness? Well, older adults, one in four, globally.

Experience social isolation. Adolescents five to 15% worldwide report loneliness. Single adults are nearly twice as likely to feel lonely. Weekly compared to married adults. This is 39 to 22%. So single adults compared to married adults, 39% feel loneliness. 22% of married adults feel loneliness, which is crazy to me.

‘cause you marry,

Bruce Anthony: you marry.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. But I equate loneliness with with, okay. I equate loneliness with not being able to connect with anybody. Right? Like disconnect.

Bruce Anthony: Oh yeah,

Bruce Anthony: you know what?

Bruce Anthony: Or you leaning towards a divorce and you just don’t know it. ‘cause that’s a lonely feeling. Boy, you feel absolutely alone.

You get these life stressors and you start to feel less and less connection to your partner. And there you go. Now you’re feeling lonely.

Bruce Anthony: Yep. That’s what that song was. I’m so sick of feeling lonely.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. Alright.

Bruce Anthony: Graphic disparities.

Bruce Anthony: Geographic. Geographic disparities. Geographic disparities. Just forgot that whole geo, hon.

Bruce Anthony: [00:36:00] Just left it right off. No reason. No reason. Not a difficult.

Bruce Anthony: But the gra geographic disparities is graphic.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Geographic disparities, ladies, gentlemen, states in the deep south with higher poverty rates report the highest levels of extreme loneliness. Yeah. If you in a deep south and you poor, that’s a double negative to me. ‘cause I know, ‘cause I know We technically in the south right now, you know, I, I I’m technically in you in the deep south.

[00:37:00] Okay. This is what they’re talking about. They say states in the deep south. You in the deep south. I’m in the south. I’m in the northern, most part of the south. They don’t even call where I’m from. Really? The south.

Bruce Anthony: Not really, but they’re experiencing extreme loneliness and where you live does matter because loneliness is a disconnect as a feeling.

If you don’t got nothing good going on in your life, you going to feel absolutely alone.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: Can’t do it.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:00] Not only that, think about poverty and, and having a stable living condition, right? If housing, if your housing is insecure, we constantly moving. You can’t even make relationships with your neighbors.

Bruce Anthony: Right.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: And, and what I’ve learned as an adult is a lot of adults, their form of communication and socialization is through work.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. Actually, yeah. I yeah. I would say to most of my friends are through work.

You’re just answering questions, you’re ringing people up. You’re dealing with hundreds, sometimes thousands of people on, on your shift. You’re not getting, it’s, it is still very limited social engagement in, in, in workplaces like that. So there’s a, I would say there’s a lot of ways in which poverty definitely is tied to loneliness and vice versa.

Bruce Anthony: So sick of being lonely. So what is the community and the societal impact, once again for those people out there that’re saying, well, I don’t feel lonely. This doesn’t affect me. Lemme point out again how it does affect you. Loneliness affects not just individuals, but also the health. Of neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.

[00:40:00] Social connection is a fundamental human need. It’s as vital as food, water, and shelter. Basically, we need social interaction, social connection, social communication we needed in order to survive. It’s the reason why every time you see these movies of people trapped, cast away, uh, what’s the movie? When Matt Damon was on Mars for a long time.

The Martian.

Bruce Anthony: The Martian.

Bruce Anthony: The The Martian. The Martian. These people, people, you know, uh, Castaway, who was his best friend

Bruce Anthony: to him. Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: [00:41:00] Yep. That’s the reason why the, one of the most inhumane things that we do in prison is send people to the hole where they have no communication, no light. They’re stuck in darkness for week, two weeks, three weeks, a month.

Bruce Anthony: Not, well, no. Well, no, we are not gonna get into that. ‘cause we know the prison system isn’t rehabilitative at all. But the point I’m trying to make is loneliness is absolutely an epidemic. So the next time somebody says to you, I feel lonely, if they’re your people, reach out to ‘em. Even if you busy do something to connect with them.

It could be something as simple as a FaceTime. And if you ain’t got an Android, what’s up? App does have video chat and everybody could get what’s.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah, I, it’s WhatsApp, but I call it WhatsApp app. I don’t give damn what nobody say that makes more sense to me than WhatsApp. I mean than WhatsApp. It is WhatsApp app.

Bruce Anthony: No, I don’t like that play. It’s stupid.

Bruce Anthony: That are free. That are free. Yeah.

So I was able to like, build community around those two. But I, I’m sure it would’ve been incredibly difficult for me to come down here and not know anybody. so you gotta get, you know, uh, be more mindful and intentional about building And thing that I do is I like to volunteer. You can always find volunteer opportunities in, you know, local missions, shelters, things like that.

[00:44:00] There’s all United Way will send you an email. They will send you an email, okay. Biweekly, monthly, and let you know about volunteer opportunities in your area. That’s another way to like, not only foster connection, but also give you that sense of like,

Bruce Anthony: Community.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: [00:45:00] Jay? A friend of mine sent me a reel that I saw this morning, and this is the reason why I want to talk about this subject. The friend is my age, literally. My age is a couple of months older than me. We’re very similar in the ways that we grew up, just like all millennials are. Right? And it was saying the differences between millennials and Gen Z, basically, like if, if you didn’t have to ask your mom, if you had to stay with somebody’s house, if you didn’t get a, if you got time out of, instead of a beating, uh, if you didn’t have.

Uh, field day, something like Field day, then, then you can’t say nothing to me. And it got me thinking, ‘cause I have such admiration for Gen Z because they are far more emotionally intelligent at the, at their ages compared to when we were their ages. Like it’s light years that I think they get a bad rap for being sensitive and soft.

[00:46:00] And I think that maybe we lack true empathy and that that generation actually has empathy. Like they normally get, get accused of being self-absorbed and self-centered. But it’s actually our generation, uh, that is absolutely.

Rough shot all over you. And you’d be like, well that’s, that’s grandma. So she can say what she

Bruce Anthony: Right, right. So this article is 12 phrases that Trigger Gen, gen Z, but older generations don’t think twice about. And the story is by Radha Perera.

Bruce Anthony: as good. That’s as close I’m gonna get.

Bruce Anthony: [00:47:00] Yeah, well that was said well, more eloquently than I would, but this article explores the generational divide in language, highlighting 12 common phrases that older generations use without a second thought, but which Gen Z often finds offensive, offensive, and validating or dismissive.

This disconnect is rooted in differences in values and communication styles and attitudes towards mental health, social justice, and technology. Gen Z’s emphasis on empathy, inclusivity, and emotional intelligence means that they are more sensitive to language that feels dismissive or outdated, especially when it comes to social issues or personal experiences.

So are we gonna go through all 12 phrases? I don’t know. Not phases. I said it right before we started this segment that I was gonna stop saying phases and was gonna say phrases, but ladies and gentlemen, if it’s, if it’s a day. That day I done messed up several words. All right. Messed up. Geo geographic.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: [00:48:00] So one of the phrases that, that Gen Z often gets annoyed by is get over it. It feels dismissive of mental health struggles and invalidates genuine concerns, especially for a generation that values emotional openness. And I will say that I used to say, yeah, just get over it because once again, I was emotionally in, uh, ignorant, and now I’m becoming emotionally intelligent and realizing that look, just because I may think something is not a big deal, does that mean that that’s the biggest deal of the person’s.

[00:49:00] World right now. Like when we were kids, we just talked, we just touched on it in the last segment. What happened to us at school was our entire world, we didn’t realize that, that that small window of four years in our high school, like half the time we wouldn’t even remember whatever thing that was serious that happened that day, a year from then, much less 20 years from then.

But in that moment, that is the most important. Right. And so

You can’t just tell somebody to get over it. You don’t think I thought of that?

Bruce Anthony: you don’t think I would if I could, but I can’t.

I don’t know why I haven’t thought of that. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Please stop telling people that, Hmm.

Bruce Anthony: [00:50:00] Well, here’s another one that’s gonna piss you off. Don’t be so dramatic. It’s another phrase that pisses Gen Z off. It undermines emotional expression and reinforces the stigma around discussing feelings, which Gen Z actively works to dismantle. You know why? Because it’s effing healthy.

Bruce Anthony: said something on my episode that released on Tuesday, uh, how there’s this whole.

Thing going around, could a hundred men beat a gorilla, one gorilla? And the answer is no. The answer is yes, yes, under the right circumstances. But the answer is truly no. Because the original question was, could 100 average men beat the gorilla? And the answer is no, because they’re going to face fear. And a lot of times men don’t want to address the fact that they’re afraid.

Everything that that pisses men off is because we are afraid, and Gen Z is openly like, yo, we going dismantle that. So don’t tell me that I’m being dramatic. Don’t be dramatic. This is how I feel. I’m going to express the way I feel.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: Right.

Bruce Anthony: Hmm.

Bruce Anthony: [00:52:00] Another way, another phrase that pisses off Gen Z if it doesn’t affect you. Oh, excuse me. Another phrase that pisses off Gen Z eventually I’m gonna get these right. It doesn’t affect you. So why do you care so much? This ignores Gen Z’s commitment to empathy and social activism in validating their drive to support causes beyond their immediate experience.

Something like, I don’t know, black Lives Matter,

Bruce Anthony: younger millennials, younger, yeah.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

We move away from community and caring about the people in our community,

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: [00:54:00] So, two fate, two mm. Say it again. I look ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know what’s happening to me today. I felt good today, feel like in good spirits, but I’m struggling a little bit. Two phrases that piss Gen Z off, and we’re gonna do these back to back ‘cause I feel like they’re connected. We’ve been through this before and back in my day.

Bruce Anthony: They’re both used to dismiss new perspectives or concerns by implying that older generations experiences are more valid, which stifles productive dialogue and compares current struggles to the past in a way that belittles the unique challenges Gen Z faces, particularly, particularly in the workforce.

And yes, I, I even get it from boomers, right? Back in my day, you know, I would’ve had a House of family and all this. I was like, yeah, for, uh, 1299.

Bruce Anthony: Right.

Bruce Anthony: Uhhuh?

Bruce Anthony: No, we, we, yeah. It is all relative. Yes. Yes.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Like

Bruce Anthony: From its inception.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think people need to really need to, yeah.

Bruce Anthony: [00:56:00] Yes. Yes. And, and, and, and, and that’s a hard concept to visualize because if you’re a parent, an uncle and aunt, a godfather, things of that nature, and you, and you’re trying to be upbeat and be like, yeah, we’ve been through this before. It’s gonna be all right. ‘cause back in my day, this is the way you handle it.

We ain’t talking about back in the day. ‘cause back in the day is different than what it is right now. They’re, they are faced, the younger generation is faced with certain circumstances and actions that I couldn’t even fathom. And I don’t have an answer on how to deal with it because actually I haven’t been through it before.

Not specifically what they’re going through. It looks familiar, but it’s not the same. So you can’t be so dismissive of another person’s plight.

Bruce Anthony: Couple more things that pisses off Gen Z. It is just the way things are.

Bruce Anthony: This signals resistance to change and innovation clashing with Gen Z’s desire to challenge the status quo and improve systems, and that’s not a real job.

[00:57:00] Dismisses new career paths and the evolving job market, especially remote or digital work that is increasingly common among Gen Z. I personally had this with our father who told me when I wanted to start to do something one time,

Bruce Anthony: I had an option to go to do something very similar that was a lot more sturdy and had a lot more, uh, notoriety and prestige surrounding it.

They were both similar, but I knew that my path fit me better and I didn’t want to go that route and. Our father cussed me 17 ways through Sunday, through Sunday, said that I was, I was dead wrong. I didn’t know I was talking about, and I was an idiot. Two years later, he comes to me and he is like, I didn’t see it.

[00:58:00] You were right. And I, and not all people do that, right? I’m I, I’m not knocking my father. I’m actually giving him kudos because he didn’t see the vision, because that type of vision wasn’t in his perspective coming up as a career path. But when I did it, he was adult enough, emotionally intelligent enough to be like, you know what?

I was wrong. You did do this. This opens up new possibilities of things that I didn’t even think were possible. And so people are so stuck, especially really our generation and the generation, gen X and boomers of this was a certain way.

Bruce Anthony: I know it freaks boomers out. When Gen X started this, and millennials really carried it on when we did not follow the career path that our bachelor’s degree told us that we were supposed to follow.

The majority of people that are out there working, they are not doing anything associated with their bachelor’s degree, not a thing. It’s almost like, why’d you go to school? Because their career path was, you go to school for this degree and that’s what you do.

Bruce Anthony: [00:59:00] We got a cousin that has a degree in biomechanical engineering.

I don’t even know what that is, but it is something, and they’re extraordinary, don’t do that at all, but it’s still very, very successful. So these ideas of this is, this is what I believe is the path. The world constantly evolves. You need to evolve with it.

Bruce Anthony: No there isn’t

[01:00:00] And then you have this very thriving gig economy in this, in this country and globally that, that, you know, a lot of a, a lot of, I think older people was like, no, you need to go to an office, wear a suit and tie and, uh, no, I can actually be a courier and just, and ride my bike and deliver packages.

Bruce Anthony: and make good money.

Like, you know what I’m saying? Like there are, uh, different ways, different paths to success. And I think it’s this, this older, uh, generation and, and I’m not saying that Yeah, raging against the machine started with Gen X. They didn’t carry it through millennials picked it up a little bit and was like, Hey, we should put mental health in this.

And then, and then Gen Z took it and ran with it. But it’s like these, the older generations of this is how life is supposed to go,

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: That part.

And that’s it. And it’s so like, but you know, but like that, like that is supposed to be the life plan, right? But how, how is that one life plan gonna work for the 7 billion people that are in this world? That doesn’t make sense.

Bruce Anthony: [01:02:00] True. All right, we’re just gonna finish up with two more phrases, and I feel like these are very, very important and Hammer Home why I believe Gen Z is right in all this. Two phrases, the boy, boys will be boys, and that’s not very ladylike. Let’s start with the boys Will be Boys. Go back and watch a movie that all millennials saw as kids or pre-teens.

Back to the future. Pay very close attention to Biff,

Bruce Anthony: Biff. Was a psychopath sexual assault person. What do I mean by that? He tried to kill Marty McFly several times and he is literally a sexually assaulted Marty Mc fly’s mother in the car.

Bruce Anthony: Go back and watch that movie and it’s all under the guise of this comedy.

Boys will be Boys. That’s the reason why there was a whole Me Too movement because the expression Boys Will Be Boys was said for so long that men could just do whatever the hell they wanted and get away with it. And then finally women said the hell they can. And this thing that’s not very ladylike. Not very ladylike to who you.

[01:03:00] Your idea of what a lady is fact of the matter is to me. Many women would say Gorilla is not very ladylike. I think she’s all the way a lady. ‘cause she’s a boss. She’s a boss. She goes out there and gets her money. She employs people. She’s an entrepreneur and she is an artist. She’s a boss. That to me, is very ladylike.

‘cause that’s how I like my ladies. Little classy showing a little assy, but that’s just me. That’s just me. But the

Bruce Anthony: mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: Yes. Yes. If you don’t explain to little boys why they should not be hitting little girls, shouldn’t be hitting anybody. Unless you’re defending yourself, then you are gonna get grown men. Hidden wives, girlfriends, daughters.

Bruce Anthony: Mm. That too.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah.

They never learn it.

Bruce Anthony: [01:05:00] They never learned it. But you know, those are just a, a few of the phrases that Gen Z gets annoyed about. And you know what? I agree with them on every single one. We as millennials, gen X and boomers got some growing up to do. I know. We feel like we’re growing up. Just ‘cause we older don’t mean that we grown up.

We got some growing up to do.

Bruce Anthony: Jay, what do you wanna tell the people out there?

Bruce Anthony: Uh, I agree with everything that you just said. That does not pertain to me. Ladies and gentlemen, don’t check on me. Leave me the hell alone. Y’all bothering me, asking me where are the YouTube exclusives and, and I watch your podcast every day on TikTok, idiots. Anyway,

Bruce Anthony: yeah,

Bruce Anthony: yeah,

Bruce Anthony: yeah. This is true. And on that note, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for listening. I want to thank you for watching, and until next time, as always, I’ll holler.

Bruce Anthony: Alright. Did you get a chance to look at a rundown?

Bruce Anthony: Oh, why?

Bruce Anthony: No, I mean, I think it’s, I, I, I got a place that I want to take that. Uh, but I want to, I didn’t even read, like, I, like I set it up so I know what it is, right? I didn’t even like read through thoroughly the stuff in the third segment.

‘cause I want to take that all in instantaneous

Bruce Anthony: [01:07:00] with you to really get our take as far as, you know, things that Gen Z is like, don’t say to me.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. ‘cause somebody sent me something and I was just like, you know what? This is interesting. All right, you ready? All right, I’m gonna do the intro and the second intro and then get to it.

Bruce Anthony: Okay. Yeah. Turn. I’m in lights and I’ll glow

Bruce Anthony: now. Hold on. Lemme take a sip.

Bruce Anthony: Well, you know how you can have, how you, you know how you can have heartburn? It would cause heartburn, could cause your stomach to be a little upset. So all this person needed did was heartburn basically. And they stomach was upset and they just needed a rip one.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. No, they was alone. Uh, you ready

[01:08:00] yeah, that was a good way to intersect, man. I ain’t need to add no more. All right. Um, you gotta, you can see your clock on the phone, on your computer, right?

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. So we’ve been, it’s 47 minutes. We’ve been filming for like 43, so do like 15 minutes. I don’t know if I’m gonna get through all 12 of these phases.

Phrases, not phrases. Dammit, bro, I look, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I be messing up words. That’s one thing that I know for sure in my life. I ain’t gonna go a whole day without messing up some words.

It’s one thing I know for sure.

Bruce Anthony: Shit, sometimes it’s, sometimes it’s one syllable. I can fuck up a word with one syllable. It don’t take much. Boy, let me, let me try and start talking too fast. I’m gonna say, I’m gonna say some words wrong. Alright, you ready?

Good show. Little long, little, long, but it was a good show. Shit.

Bruce Anthony: [01:09:00] Yeah, I pulled that outta my ass today. Like I literally woke up this morning and threw my hands up in the air.

Like I don’t, because I did my own show this week, so that means I had to come up with topics when we filmed on Sunday for the YouTube exclusive, right. I had to come up with topics for my own show and carry that shit. And then I had to come up for topics for this and I was like, look, I searching the internet.

Bruce Anthony: You ain’t never got it. You ain’t never,

Bruce Anthony: why don’t you ever do that in the first place?

I’ll send it to you.

Bruce Anthony: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Anthony: Yeah. You know, if,

Bruce Anthony: well, since the election,

Bruce Anthony: Hmm

Bruce Anthony: mm-hmm.

Woo. That was a hell of a show. Thank you for rocking with us here on Unsolicited Perspectives with Bruce Anthony. Now, before you go, don’t forget to follow, subscribe, like, comment, and share our podcast. Wherever you’re listening or watching it to it, pass it along to your friends. If you enjoy it, that means the people that you rock, we’ll enjoy it also.

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Audi 5,000 Peace.