Scrabble is getting an update after 75 years. And it’s not a good one. This new edition, Scrabble Together, will now be “easier” and “more inclusive.” It will feature helping cards and tutorial instructions because Generation Z wants to “avoid competitive games and sense of losing.” 

Scrabble is not the only game following this trend. Video games have been heavily criticized in the past decade for becoming handheld products, and not in the good way. It is standard nowadays for high-budget titles to force players through hours of prompts explaining the most simple and rudimentary concepts before allowing them to actually play the game itself.

Many have mocked Scrabble’s decision, but their criticism is misguided. Scrabble is not being “woke” here. Rather, it is addressing the most evident problem of Gen Z: it lacks the fundamental mindset to lead fulfilling lives. 

Much of Gen Z’s societal incompetency is thanks to the bad parenting of previous generations. Parents have become eager to please in the past few decades, and Gen Z has to suffer for it. To this day, the helicopters are swarming overhead. It is not unheard of for older parents to use Facebook groups to set up “playdates” for their historically lonely young adult offspring. 

Gen Z performs poorly in the workplace. According to a survey of managers from Resume Builder, 74% of managers find it to be the most difficult generation to work with, 49% say it is difficult “most or all of the time,” 65% of the first group have reportedly needed to fire Gen Z employees, and 12% have done so within the first week of employment. Thirty-nine percent said they lacked the necessary workplace skills. 

Gen Z lacks professionalism right out of the gate, according to a poll by Intelligent. An astonishing 20% brought their parents to their job interviews, and 20% of employers said recent college graduates are generally unprepared. They do poorly in interviews because 53% fail to make eye contact, 50% ask for unreasonable compensation, and 47% dress inappropriately. 

Gen Z lacks commitment. In the workplace, according to data from Jabra, 52% of Gen Zers feel stressed and 48% of them expect to ditch their current jobs within the next year despite feeling satisfaction there. Relationships are not considered that important, either. A Vice Media Group survey found that only around 10% of Gen Z is “committed to being committed.” 

Gen Z is the most mentally troubled generation. A survey by the Cigna Group found that a larger percentage of them struggle with mental health than every other generation. Hopefully this is temporary, as a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that while each successive generation experiences a decline in mental health, it mostly recovers with age.

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Effectively being the smartphone generation certainly did not help Gen Z. Social media increases the likelihood of having behavioral problems. A study by the National Center for Biotechnology Information found that children who spend more than one hour a day on social media have significantly more conduct problems, hyperactivity/inattention, and emotional symptoms than children who spend less than one hour a day on social media.

Thanks to an early helping of helicopter parenting and cultural hand-holding, Gen Z is plagued by a plethora of entitlement and incompetency problems. Many of these sorts of problems will amend themselves with age and experience, but society better stop treating them like they are special before these toxic tendencies last longer through adulthood.

Parker Miller is a 2024 Washington Examiner winter fellow.