Young adults share their stories of growing up in a post-pandemic world
In a post-pandemic world, we are constantly told that young people are floundering. They’re behind academically, addicted to their phones, and unable to manage their mental health struggles. Yet, for all the talk about who young people are, how many have listened to how they define themselves?
Since 2020, author Meika Loe has followed a diverse group of college-educated 18-to-28-year-olds transitioning to adulthood during a period of dramatic social change. In Zigzag Adulting, she shares their stories of friendships and breakups, working and paying off debt, and attending to their own health and well-being. She reveals their ambivalence towards social media and their struggles with isolation. She also addresses the systemic obstacles they face, from increasing social inequality and political polarization to the ongoing emergency of global warming.
The pandemic gave these college-educated cohorts time to reflect on their personal values and to deepen their attentiveness to activism, collective grief, and meaningful work. The result is a generation that values mental health, self-development, belonging, and connection as significant markers of success. While they may be living in an uncertain world, their nimbleness and adaptability have served them well in the evolving arenas of work, health, and relationships. Rather than speaking over the new generation, Zigzag Adulting instead asks what young people can teach us about the meaning of “adulthood” in an era of radical change.
Price: $30.00
Publisher: NYU Press
Imprint: NYU Press
Series: Critical Perspectives on Youth
Publication Date:
May 4, 2027
ISBN: 9781479848423
Format: eBook
BISACs:
SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Marriage & Family, FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS / Life Stages / Teenagers, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gender Studies
While young people today face a bewildering array of uncertainties, there have been no shortage of concerned takes bemoaning their social media habits, their mental health crises, their lax work commitment and the like. But what can the young people themselves tell us about how they navigate a world in flux? Relying on years of interviews with the same 30 emerging adults, Meika Loe brings us inside, so we can see how they struggle and triumph, forging hope and resilience at work, in their health and their relationships. Loe’s treasure trove of data is unparalleled – eleven Zoom interviews with the same young people, spread out over five years, and augmented by an in-person meetup. We get to know her characters as they embark on new jobs, forgive an absent parent or go line dancing. We watch them navigate “friendship churn” and figure out their “spiritual path.” As we listen to these young people who were college students during COVID, the most affirming takeaway is how connected they are. It turns out, they learned something from those many months of isolation and despair: the importance of other people. And with this book, Loe, a consummate ethnographer, has done it again. Zigzag Adulting is a fascinating glimpse of what it is like to be a young adult in America, brought to us by someone who has made a career of scouring the life course for profound sociological truths.
Zigzag Adulting is a timely and powerful portrayal of how young people are navigating, and transforming, their journey into adulthood in a world riddled with pressing social problems and uncertainty. Following them over five years, Loe carefully centers young adults’ voices, uncovering the constraints faced, fragility felt, and resilience practiced, in the arenas of employment, health, and relationships. Beautifully written, this is a must-read for anyone interested in looking beyond the numbers to learn from young adults about “adulting” in a broken world.
Meika Loe is Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at Colgate University. She is the author of The Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in America (NYU Press, 2004) and Aging our Way: Lessons for Living from 85 and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2011). Loe has been featured on National Public Radio (NPR), O Magazine, BBC, The Washington Post, London Sunday Times, Psychology Today, Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA), The New England Journal of Medicine, and Mother Jones. Over the past two decades, she has collaborated with college students to research and write about how young adults navigate academic and performance pressures. Loe received her PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
