Sometimes you watch a film and wish it could be screened in every school, not just for the pupils but also their parents and teachers. This is one such film. It’s a documentary full of passion, insight, understanding, compassion and common sense with a vibrant dash of fun, colour and vivacity.

This informative and emotive film expertly highlights the profound impact that social media is having on the wellbeing of young people. It captures a generational injustice and the collective failure of both companies and law makers to protect the rights and needs of young people online. 5Rights is committed to making sure those rights are respected and upheld, to build the digital world that young people deserve. We thank the makers of this film for bringing these issues to the fore.

I Am Gen Z moves swiftly between topics, covering digital technology’s impact on interpersonal relationships, body image, mental health and more. This ambitious catalogue of themes is stitched together with impeccable, fast-paced editing. The documentary seamlessly moves from explaining the deliberately addictive nature of social media to digital privacy violations and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Despite its message of hope – Gen Z is the most empathetic generation yet – the documentary doesn’t sugarcoat the way digital technology has changed our lives, not necessarily for the better. I Am Gen Z is an unflinching look at how society’s rules, designed for an analogue world, just don’t work in the digital one.

It was really refreshing to watch a film where Gen Z wasn’t villainized. The film had a great empathy for our generation. We are usually viewed as lazy, selfish and self-centered. Gen Z encompass a great deal of empathy. We appreciate kindness, and fairness. We are compassionate, and have a great deal of curiosity about the World and the people around us. We are simply part of a system that is larger than ourselves, and larger than life really, which is why we can be hyper-focused on ourselves and our accomplishments. However, this isn’t entirely our fault. We have grown up in a capitalistic society, where we are expected to consume, and accomplish to have value. This point of view moved me, because this kindness and sense of fairness is what I see in my friends.

I found the film really moving. I knew the surface level of some of the issues in the film. But I had never realised the full scale, in relation to the manipulation of tech on our lives and also the mass deterioration in mental health in this generation. I really appreciated the nuance of showing how much this generation has been through and experienced, while also focusing on the grit and anger that comes out of tough times and how we have adapted to the algorithms of our virtual world. I learned a lot watching this film and, even though some of the content is quite upsetting, I do genuinely feel very proud to be a part of Gen Z.

I saw the film on a Lufthansa flight. It was phenomenal. I would love to share it with other parents in my church to help them understand our Gen Z children better. Thanks for an awesome production.