Fun Redefined: Beyond The Front Door
I, Anastasia, have been exploring why my peers and I behave the way we do, how our idea of 'fun' keeps changing, and what this means for the future of your business. Through my own research, data analysis, voxpops, and interviews, I’ve gathered insights on how Gen Z is having fun indoors, outdoors, and abroad. These insights are shared across three blog posts, so you can hear it straight from the source. This is the second of the three.
Beyond the front door
When Gen Z do breach the safety of our front doors, the activities we are choosing to partake in are different from those popular with previous generations.
Going out is no longer just about Nightlife – it is about Novelty.
We place huge value on new experiences with 63 per cent of survey respondents saying they would rather spend money on new experiences over material items (Barclays). We are more savvy with how we spend money, and subscribe to a mentality of ‘if you’re going to spend it, spend it on something memorable’.
We are rejecting a one-size-fits-all nightlife and want our experiences to be personalised. TikTok and Instagram are particularly well positioned to help us to find these unique, secret spaces, and leveraging our penchant for sharing online can help your company reach us.
From sober-curious events to gamified bars, we are choosing venues and activities that are interesting enough to get us off our phones, and fulfilling enough that we do not need copious amounts of alcohol to act as a social lubricant.
You can’t wait for Gen Z to find you, use their algorithms.
Companies looking to reach Gen Z can no longer rely on Gen Z searching for their website. We are less likely to actively search for fun things to do and more likely to wait for a friend or our perfectly curated algorithm to recommend them to us. You need to create content that your target Gen Z customers will enjoy watching enough for them to welcome it into their feeds time and time again. Top Golf is a good example of a company that creates entertaining and relatable content, proven by their over half a million followers on TikTok. We want to have a laugh and are likely to double tap the post, or share the video with a friend encouraging the algorithm to feed us more Top Golf content, and it works.
Social media’s influence doesn’t end here; Finding and sharing spots on social media is a cycle, use it.
36 per cent of Gen Z’s have visited a restaurant to post about it on social media (Bdaily). If you make an event or venue ‘instagrammable’ then Gen Z customers will share it on social media platforms themselves, helping you reach an exponentially wider audience than you can achieve with your marketing alone. The uniquely and immersively decorated Sketch London has cracked this code with each dining area appearing to be a work of art as well as a place to eat. They have appealed to Gen Z wanting more of a novel experience when going out, but most importantly, an instagram opportunity.
Create Realms of Fun Outside of Phones
It will come as no secret that Gen Z’s relationship with social media is not all sunshine and daisies. We blame it for promoting polarising ideas and unrealistic ways of living, leading to a youth mental health crisis. I haven’t mentioned sitting on TikTok as ‘fun’ because Gen Z don’t see it as that. We might see it as at best funny and functional but at worst it is toxic and a time drain. As self-proclaimed addicts, the relationship is complicated. It is difficult to get away from, but many are trying:
"Scrolling doesn't actually relax me. It makes me feel a bit rubbish about myself at the end of it, but it's the easiest thing to do. So when I've had a long day and motivation's low, that's what I resort to." Charlie, 24
Social media is addictive, but doesn't fill me in the same way that like reading my book would fulfill me. Even if a book's addictive, I feel satisfied at the end of it. After scrolling Instagram, I don't feel satisfied". Will, 23
"I think it's such an overload of fast-paced information. It's completely frying our brains… I do really try and restrict my social media use for my own mental health." Hatty, 24
Gen Z are the leading generation on taking detox breaks from social media with 57 per cent having taken one in 2023 (Sprout Social). We are addicted to our phones but have an awareness of it which makes us eager to pursue types of ‘fun’ that force us to put the phones down.
The desire to have fun separate from our phones paired with an increased health focus means the locations that we seek out to have fun in are changing. Gen Z are drinking 20 per cent less than millennials per capita, and 71 per cent of them cite that they are concerned by the consequences of drinking (Primrose Lodge). The aim is no longer to get drunk but centered around more immersive activities, usually of some benefit to ourselves, trying something new or increasing our knowledge or our fitness. We are more likely to want to go to the pub for a quiz or to ditch the booze altogether and opt for a pottery class or five-a-side football game. Dancing at the club is being substituted for fitness dance fusions and getting the bar bill for the barbell.
‘General health activities are taking over…run clubs, park runs on the weekend, and people doing a lot of activities like Hotpod yoga’ – Will, 24
Saunas are seeing a massive uptake among Gen Z. In London, it is particularly Finnish saunas that have grabbed the attention of the youth being traditionally more of an affordable every day activity. Between 2023 and 2024 Finnish-style saunas doubled in the UK, and are set to reach over 200 by the end of 2025 (British Sauna Society. The focus is on their affordability, the endorphins they release (a good alternative to alcohol) and the social opportunities that they bring. (See: Community Sauna Baths, Hackney)
Outside of bettering ourselves, escape rooms have answered our call for a novel, gamified activity, while the electric shuffle craze has reinvented a vintage game into a more interactive and exciting activity, and is now operating chains over the UK and US. In cases where we do favour a catch-up without an activity, Gen Z are discovering that conversations over a pint can also be had over a coffee, saving us a couple pennies, the long-term carcinogenic effects of alcohol, and a sore head the next morning.
There is still definitely room for expansion of these activities. Our interviewees suggested:
‘There need to be more communal spaces that are open in the evenings which aren't drink based: games nights, film screenings with a purpose to the event that's not just socialising but an actual activity’. - Lucy, 23
‘[Venues need to] combine the different aspects of club, pub, bar into a more like chilled out hangout space’ - Fiona, 23
Our battle with ‘doomscrolling’ is not a battle with digital.
There is an important distinction to be made between our relationship with the addictive nature of social media, and our understanding of what it enables us to do, as well as the positive potential of the internet as a whole.
Do you wish you grew up in a time before the internet?...Yeah, definitely. I think it's caused a lot of problems in our minds. It is also excellent. - Charlie, 24
I think we do spend a lot of time on the internet, but… I think that the internet can be like a really positive, beneficial space and a place to find community for a lot of younger people - Lucy, 24
The internet has enabled me to meet different people, explore different things, and satisfy my curiosity and travel to places - Denise, 27
Digital Aids Outside of Social Media
While social media is often used to discover ‘fun’ things to do and a unique looking venue encourages posts on social media platforms which can act as free advertising, the digital has reframed fun in a much broader sense. Gen Z value the ease that the internet provides. From booking online to reading reviews before making our minds up about where to go, the benefit of it is inescapable. As our interviewees pointed out, it also has great potential for creating and maintaining communities. Friends can speak to each other face-to-face from any corner of the world, keen bird watchers can find likeminded friends and plan trips, Scottish skiers can share information about snow conditions and share rides to the Highlands. Gen Z are as aware of the perils of the internet as we are of the ease and opportunity that it brings. Your company can use both sides of the coin to appeal to us.
Anti-Swiping Meets Pro-Internet In Dating
In the US, Millennials account for 61 per cent of dating app users while Gen Z lag significantly behind at 26 per cent (Statista, 2023). Gen Z are trying to move dating, like other forms of having fun, outside of their phones. Still, a digital layer is helpful. Eventbrite noted that between 2023-24 there was a 49 per cent increase in Gen Z and Millennial attendance at dating and singles events (Eventbrite). Gen Z are able to utilise the internet to act as a tool for seeding out single people with similar interests and of a similar age group, without falling into the design of dating apps to keep you on them for as long as possible. This not only diminishes the odds of rejection, compared with approaching a stranger at a bar, but also acts as a safety net knowing that the person they are talking to is not duping them, and should something go wrong they are in a safe environment.
Outside of dating events, patterns for preferences when going out with friends are no different from when going out with a beau. Eventbrite found that 42 per cent of singletons are keen to step out of their comfort zones on a date with 32 per cent of men and 29 per cent of women going as far as saying that a unique experience is crucial.
When we step outside of our front doors, risking a less convenient and more expensive alternative to the fun we might have indoors, we want to do activities that are worth our time and money. We want to do something that might benefit our physical or mental health, or learn something new. Something that will distract us from our phones and isn’t found in a pint glass. We use social media to help find activities that are tailored to our interests, and to share when we partake in these experiences. We appreciate digital means that ease experiences, such as online booking or singles events that provide a digital vetting process.
When it has become so convenient to stay inside, fun outside must be positioned as a novel or worthwhile experience, otherwise we may as well stay at home.
