Scrolling through your social media feed today, you’ll find no shortage of infographics, video explainers, or interactive polls aiming to educate followers on social or environmental causes. Climate activism, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights – societal issues once relegated to more traditional analog forms of protest are now flooding digital spaces. And leading this new wave of digital activism is Gen Z.
Born between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z came of age in a rapidly digitizing world. Where Millennials established the early foothold on social media, Gen Z is now dominating the digital landscape, using platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube to drive social change. A recent study by the Annie E. Casey Foundation showed that about 70% of Gen Zers believe the government should be more active in solving societal issues. And that sense of empowerment combined with digital fluency has given rise to a new breed of Gen Z activists and changemakers harnessing the power of storytelling to educate and inspire movements.
Digital Natives Tackling Real-World Issues
“For Gen Z, social media platforms provide a built-in infrastructure to spread ideas,” says Dillon St. Bernard, 23, founder of Team DSB, a purpose-driven media company using storytelling for change. “We’re digital natives. Leveraging these tools not only feels natural, but also gives us the ability to shape narratives on societal issues on our own terms.”
As a college student, Dillon landed opportunities to produce digital content for nonprofits. Galvanized by the experience, Dillon launched Team DSB, quitting his job to to pursue the company full-time. “I realized the power of sharing stories that humanize social issues as a first step to drive collective action,” he says. “Gen Z innately understands that stories spread ideas today.”
And spread they have. In the last three years, Team DSB has mobilized over 1.5 million people toward anti-racism efforts, youth-led environmental conservation initiatives, and more. Leveraging the exponential reach of platforms like Instagram and TikTok, Dillon and his small team produce bite-sized graphics, short videos and interactive filters that reduce barriers and distill complex issues into digestible media that travels.
“We meet people where they’re at already consuming content online. Making messaging easily shareable allows it to spread organically,” says Dillon. “When you craft stories people connect with and content they can participate in, they become part of spreading ideas peer-to-peer.”
“We’re expanding the possibilities for what activism looks like by tapping into rising technologies,” Dillon asserts. “Gen Z doesn’t just consume content. We create engaging stories that reimagine realities. That creative friction drives change.”
Creativity and Code-Switching for Changemaking
Like all generations facing existential threats – from the civil rights generation to millennials amidst the climate crisis – Gen Z contends with deep anxieties about its future. But having grown up embedded in digital networks, Gen Z displays a unique sense of social responsibility tied to technological possibility.
A recent survey by Edelman found 62% of Gen Z surveyed want to work with brands to address societal issues. Combined with having the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in U.S. history, Gen Z is poised to drive mass movements for social change through digital platforms. If there is a defining ethos of their generation, it is to leverage technology to forge more equitable systems.
“What older generations built with picket signs, we’re constructing through Twitter threads that spark dialogue and memes that push narratives,” Dillon remarks. “The challenges ahead of us are urgent and interconnected. My generation understands technology isn’t just something we consume, but another avenue to engineer the society we want.”
That ethos carries through in Dillon’s creative philosophy at Team DSB, where every new project starts with the question: who is this for, and how can we empower them? The team strives to craft stories as told by the subjects themselves rather than speaking on issues narrowly through their lens. Centering community voices builds trust to invite wider audiences to understand social issues beyond surface-level discourse. Code-switching across platforms and demographics comes naturally.
“We have to meet different audiences where they are, speaking authentically to each. On TikTok, we’ll explain realities youth face about discrimination or climate anxiety through short videos that feel native. On Instagram, interactive AR puts power literally into users’ hands”, Dillon explains. “Then we’ll publish op-eds expanding on policy goals or long-form documentaries giving space for subjects to share intimately. Code-switching across mediums and modes is key.”
Through multimedia storytelling, Team DSB aims to incrementally activate attention and then action around causes. “It’s a cycle – short-form content gives issues momentum to go more in-depth then back out broadly again. We build sustained engagement across mediums this way,” Dillon notes. “My generation thinks across platforms, across ideologies, to change cultures step-by-step through technology.”
The Digital Tool Kit Expanding
As Gen Z creators like Dillon St. Bernard show, engagement starts with meeting people across today’s fragmented media landscape. TikTok, Instagram reels and YouTube shorts capture modern mobile attention spans, while interactive visuals create two-way participation. Then episodic podcasts or detailed explainers on Substack widen contextual understanding of systemic change needed.
While leading digital activism today, Gen Z also contributes a sense of restraint around technology-defining, sole processes for change. Having created movements like March For Our Lives in the wake of school shootings, Gen Z understands broad representation and coalition-building matters most. So online activism complements rather than replaces traditional bricks-and-mortar organizing.
“At best, digital tools expand the toolkit,” says Dillon. “What technology really provides is scaffolding for connection. It allows us to assemble across physical spaces by rallying people virtually around common causes first.”
By coordinating hashtag campaigns as springboards for policy change, Gen Z provides on-ramps to tangible systemic impacts. Youth-created Instagram pages for environmental advocacy funnel followers to lobbying efforts around renewable energy bills on Capitol Hill. Anti-racism education guides on TikTok spur students to testify for inclusive curriculums at local school board hearings.
“We motivate and mobilize digitally then show up physically together too. It works hand-in-hand,” asserts Dillon. “Digital activism is anchored in real change on the ground – we need both.”
The Next Generation of Changemakers
As Dillon’s own journey shows, Gen Z approaches technology not just as a tool for singular outcomes but as a wider experiential process to advance cultural change itself. By conveying impact through digital stories as Team DSB does, Gen Zers seek to transform mindsets that improve society in myriad ways over time.
Purpose-driven content creation has become a guiding light for Dillon’s generation. “I believe everyone has a story with power if unveiled humanely,” he says. “We foster compassion first so minds expand to see humanity everywhere to drive systems-level change. Our duty is crafting those stories.”
By uploading lived experiences to the cloud through VR and flooding feeds with social awareness across apps, Gen Z Now stands to accelerate offline impact in the physical world. “What my generation has shown in just a few short years is technology gives everyday voices leverage now in unprecedented ways,” remarks Dillon. “We create access and lower barriers constantly so stories connect at scale. And those stories moved collectively drive seismic shifts.”
As society’s most vocal digital voices, Gen Z now shoulders the responsibility to drive understanding of societal issues from environmentalism to equity and beyond through thoughtful storytelling. By code-switching across platforms, crafting creative participatory content socially then showing up in policy debates, Gen Z redefines what activism means modernly. Blending online and offline engagement, values and tools, they model the fluid collaborative advocacy needed for the interconnected global challenges ahead.
“Our generation breathes technology intuitively to advance cultural values change. Digital spaces have just given us radically new ecosystems to accelerate that purpose,” Dillon concludes. “What comes next is ours to create.”