Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens.

The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner. You're invited to hang with us as we discuss how we live today, the choices we make, what we do, and how they affect our health and well-being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around for a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hi everybody welcome again to the Behavioral Corner. It's me Uncle Steve, Steve Martorano, hanging here waiting for somebody interesting to come by the Corner, and darn if they don't do that very very often, we hope you're finding that to be true. The Behavioral Corner is a podcast about, how we like to say everything because everything affects our behavioral health. And it's all possible by our great underwriting partners Retreat Behavioral Health, you'll hear more about them down the road. So let me bring you up to speed on those of you that are just dropping in, maybe for the first time we...we do programs, as I said, that cover the broad spectrum of characters and lifestyles and problems and from clinicians to athletes to broadcasters, and they tell us about their situation. And we learned something from it last episode -- and by the way, you can check out all of our previous episodes. They're archived right there on our website, BehavioralCorner.com. They're all there and the last episode of the most recent one, it's up there now, Bill Merck, who was a sort of a life coach and, an expert in job placement and human resources. He talked to us about ageism. And how people are stereotyped by their age, and the obstacles that present he was a broad swath of people, he was looking at everyone from 18 to the upper end of that. And when we finished, I thought it was enlightening. Certainly opened my eyes to a lot of things about somebody my age, who confronts ageism every now and then. But it also led us to think, well, you know what, let's, let's talk about the younger guys, because we've had a lot of people from the younger generation on the program, but they're usually here to speak about some specific topic, not about their generation. So we thought, you know what, let's do a Margaret Mead here, and go into the, into the wild, and see if we can find one of these Gen Z characters, Generation Z, and get to know them up close in person, because they will, for better or worse inherit the earth. So that's what we did. And that's why we're welcoming our guest today, Michael Altobelli. Michael is a 20-year-old college student. And he will tell you a little bit more about that ahead. In the interest of complete disclosure, Michael was not chosen at random. But instead, he was recommended by his dad, who is my strong right hand, Paul Altobelli puts the Corner together for us. He is the reason you can hear me when I turn the mic on. And you can see the pictures when they are being streamed to you. So we thank his dad, Paul, for that. Michael, thanks for joining us on the Corner.

Michael Altobelli 
Thank you, Steve.

Steve Martorano 
Tell me about yourself. 20-year-old college student, how much more time do you have?

Michael Altobelli 
I am in my junior year of college, I go to Rutgers Camden Business School. I have this year, and I have half of next year. So I'm gonna need half...I'm gonna have to do half of my senior year.

Steve Martorano 
And what are you majoring in?

Michael Altobelli 
I'm majoring in finance with a minor in economics.

Steve Martorano 
Well, you know why that'll come in handy because the last time I checked, money, doesn't talk at swears. And it makes the world go round. So it's a good, it's a good major. So I don't expect you to present yourself as the absolute epitome and typical representative of this generation, which, incidentally, for those of you who don't follow this thing, Generation Z is the newest generation. And it is those people born between 1997 and 2012, that make them between the ages of nine and 24. And there are over 68 million members of Generation Z. So Michael, what I wanted you to do is react for us to what my reading has presented me with as the characteristics and attributes and profile of what the mainstream media for the most part, and clinicians and psychologists and people claim to be the makeup of your generation. And we'll see if we can learn as much as we can. In the short time we have about Gen Z. I must tell you, I'm just now realizing that my children are millennials. I didn't know that until the other day when one of them reminded me because I don't keep track of these things. And there are a couple of generations now I guess two generations separated from you guys. So let's talk about Gen Z right? As I said, here are some of the characteristics you gave me a thumbs up thumbs down, and some insight on it. The first thing I noticed was that they say you are ambitious as a group and that you are driven by money. Is that true?

Michael Altobelli 
Generally, yeah. We are more for lack of a better word cloud heavy generation. I'd say we are some of the most individually driven generation, when you see it all the time in media have this random TikTok or YouTube star or Instagram star doing something extremely selfish to gain prominence like get their five minutes fame on the internet. We do that we are generally a more money-driven generation, mainly because everything's more expensive now we have to focus on money.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, that's in stark contrast to a lot of other generations that ran around in their youth. I think money didn't matter until, you know, they grew up and found out that it didn't matter. So you agree with that? You are ambitious, you are as a group ambitious, and your friends are ambitious. And money means something. How about travel? It's something you're supposed to love to travel. Is that true?

Michael Altobelli 
I'm not the most travel-heavy guy. And well, I do go around a lot. But we do generally enjoy traveling. I have my co-workers who were always telling us like, Oh, I'm going to New York this summer. I have a bud named Noah and he's he goes gone vacation two or three times a year all across the country. We like to be a little more worldly like to see just more than our little corner or little county in the United States.

Steve Martorano 
How large your group do you have around you that you would go tight?

Michael Altobelli 
In my immediate friend group, my immediate and what I would call my pals, I'd say about 15 people.

Steve Martorano 
Really?

Michael Altobelli 
Yeah.

Steve Martorano 
It's a fairly big number. And again, it's your suggestion that you all kind of more or less share these characteristics that we're talking about

Michael Altobelli 
Generally speaking, yes.

Steve Martorano 
How about anxiety? Anxiety comes up in a couple of generational profiles. But z is supposed to be particularly anxious. Is that true? Do you find yourself anxious?

Michael Altobelli 
Extremely. So it comes down to that inhibition factor because we have so much pressure on ourselves because we feel we have to be that ambitious to succeed in the world. Get a house. To pay off college bills. To start a family. And, you know, we view it in such a grandiose mean, because of our ambition, that we've put away more pressure on ourselves than I think other generations,

Steve Martorano 
You set a bar high enough...

Michael Altobelli 
Yes.

Steve Martorano 
...to achieve it, and then correspondingly worry about whether you're going to make it there.

Michael Altobelli 
Exactly.

Steve Martorano 
What about things like boundaries? And I'll tell you what, I think they mean by that. There had been generations of mine, the boomers in particular, who seemed at least at one very critical point in our lives, to have no boundaries. Boundaries were the enemy. Anybody said, Don't do this. Or you shouldn't do that. It seemed like an invitation to step right over the line. I would say, Well, we were not good at setting boundaries. We're good at breaking them down. How about you guys? Do you set boundaries?

Michael Altobelli 
We do. And we generally want to be a step outside the norm. We want to say no or screw you to the establishment. But we also want to do it in a way in my opinion, that's less aggressive, like how do I say this? One of the big things of topics in this generation is gender identity, or the generation wants to take a step forward and really discuss the meaning of that. We're not going to be you know, militant about it, we're not going to be like up in arms about it. But we are a little more aggressive and standing in favor of we need to have a discussion about this. And even if people do not agree of this, we will try to fight for our beliefs. But like I said, not in a peaceful manner, necessarily, militarily manner.

Steve Martorano 
Are you and your friends in this generation are you confused or amused by all of the anger and division over the issue of gender identity?

Michael Altobelli 
It's really, really dumb. Because the number even though I'm talking about this, the number itself is extremely small. Yesterday, I just before before going to the podcast, I had an idea we might bring this up. Do you know what the actual number of trans people in the United States is?

Steve Martorano 
Nope.

Michael Altobelli 
0.02% that includes trans and non-binary people and any other gender identity 0.02%

Steve Martorano 
That small fraction of the population is everybody...

Michael Altobelli 
And our generation is like, let them live our lives you know, if they want to identify as transgender or non-binary, let's confirm that. Let's let's make them...if they weren't if they were born girl, and they wouldn't be trying to transition to the man, we should use the he/him pronouns, or he/they pronouns and dress them by their name.

Steve Martorano 
What was that percentage number you gave?

Michael Altobelli 
0.02

Steve Martorano 
0.02. So that's interesting. Anyway, it's an interesting take on boundaries. It sounds as though depends upon what boundary you're talking about because that sounds a boundless and inclusive attitude as you can imagine, what about nostalgia? Are you in a strategic generation? You look back at the past and think of it wistfully, or how do you view that?

Michael Altobelli 
I mean, during the Obama years, you know, that's when our generation mainly grew up during the Obama administration. While we, our generation, for the most part, have a lot of respect for the President. We always view it as a time of, you know, not great economy, economically wise, you know, a lot of people in that generation, we're not as poor as their millennial or Boomer counterparts. We no longer have more political strife, especially during the Trump administration. So a lot of people probably view it as a time before COVID, you know, maybe with rose-tinted goggles, because it was before COVID When we were growing up. But it wasn't exactly blissful ignorance is, it wasn't great for everyone, especially after the Great Recession.

Steve Martorano 
Let's talk about let's talk about COVID for a minute...for a minute, generally speaking, well, what kind of an impact did it have? I mean, we all know about the isolation and the lost time and all that puts us psychologically, what do you think you and your friends either suffered or gained from being cut off from each other for so long?

Michael Altobelli 
I gained about 40 pounds. But psychologically, there was definitely anxiety or even I, the reason why I actually ended up getting a job was just to get out of the house, like I needed to join, even if it's going to be a job that potentially gets me COVID, I needed to get back in the work environment, I went and apply to go to a supermarket because we were just so isolating and our classes, at least in my end, we're all we're not we're virtual, we even talk to our teachers, and they just gave us assignments, say, Oh, do X, Y, and Z problems isn't submitted sometime this week. So the only people we talked with were our family. And, and we can't really hang out. So we were just during the lockdown, we mainly just had our family. And that was it. We could talk to each other online, but we come exactly as each other. Academically wise, and socially, I jumped back and I think a lot of this to my job because I got to put my foot back in the human world. For a lot of people, like my brother, it was a struggle to integrate back into society. It's just, you're gone and don't have to talk to people for so long. That socially and academically you can be a bit stunted.

Steve Martorano 
I wonder if you have thought about the contradiction or the irony in the fact that social media, and you're the first generation born utterly and completely in new media, and technology. I wonder if you have an opinion on its effect, which was intended, we were told, to bring us together? When in fact, it seems to have an isolating effect, you feel that?

Michael Altobelli 
Oh, absolutely. Especially today, especially with Instagram people, you know, they always say, oh, you know, they always judge their lives compared to others, they see someone being rich and successful. They go like, When can I be like, Why am I not like that person is the same age or slightly younger than me? And they have like a Lamborghini or yacht. Why isn't my life like that? That person has so many partners or something of that nature. And...

Steve Martorano 
It certainly, it certainly makes sense in the context of the anxiety quotient of your generation. Everybody overlooks that aspect of social media. It hasn't made everybody feel like, you know, they were Oh, good, I'll have a Lamborghini. One day, it sets off immediate waves of anxiety. You don't want to talk to me a little bit about social media. But I want to, we're gonna hold that off to the end and talk about some of those platforms, specifically, but I got a couple of more kind of generalizations about Gen Z that I want to share with you. Our guest is Michael Altobelli. He's a 20-year-old college student living in South Jersey. He's a finance major, and we'll find out what he wants to do with that degree when he gets out of college and a little bit and he's joined us as a sounding board, that's all, on what his generation is or is not, in spite of what they're thought to be. Gen Z are the people born between '97 and 2012. Let's talk about issues of trust. I'll give you a couple of organizations. And you tell me where they rank for you. Of this group. Religious leaders, journalists, politicians, or family and friends. Who do you put number one on your trust list?

Michael Altobelli 
Oh, absolutely family and friends. Without family and friends, you have nothing in life. You have to trust the people around you. And I can tell you at the bottom of the list for our generation, is religious figures. You know, we grew up a lot of times with the exposure of the Catholic Church. And recently they've frozen a lot of evangelical and Protestant sects for sexual abuse and scandals like that. And we're not really feeling that religion anymore. Especially since we have all the hypocrisy of, of Christian, many Christian organizations going on right now. Because this country is predominantly a Christian country. That's why I bring up Christianity. And we're not really having lost trust in our faith leaders, not just because our generation is encouraging more atheists or agnostic, it's because if we do want to place our trust in them, a lot of them don't seem to be trustworthy, folks.

Steve Martorano 
Where would you put journalists or the media on that list?

Michael Altobelli 
And media is a complicated issue, it's because it generally is who you trust. A lot of generation uses, like the establishment media with iyer or scorn. But when it comes to other news sources, it's generally hesitancy. A lot of news, especially in my foreign group is through hearsay, like what family and friends are saying, it is we try and speak about and my friends whom I can't say this for other members, is we try to go for more neutral or foreign news sources like the BBC or routers...routers, or

Steve Martorano 
Reuters.

Michael Altobelli 
Reuters. Thank you. Reuters.

Steve Martorano 
So you're looking around for multiple sources, and you don't get them the whole class as untrustworthy. But you have to be careful who you're reading.

Michael Altobelli 
Yeah, that's like, if you read a Fox News article, you had to go okay, take this with a grain of salt, or have you read a CNN article? Again, it's like, okay, read this with a grain of salt. Now, generally, our generation is a little more faith in CNN and MSNBC over Fox News or especially Breitbart. But you know, we generally, you know, keep an eye on what we're reading, or what we're watching.

Steve Martorano 
So that leaves the bottom of the ladder to politicians. What give me gives me the Gen Z, as you see it take on politics, do you think they matter in your life? Do you think it matters?

Michael Altobelli 
Our generation is increasingly coming on more politically active generations, because we feel, for lack of better words screwed over by the establishment that was crucial in becoming more and more populistic erasing a lot more, especially in the left-wing sector have more of a left-wing populist view of the countries that we need to do this. Now. It's all the establishment's fault all neoliberalism's fault that we're in this mess, which is why a lot of the generation, you know, galvanizes, and praises Bernie Sanders and AOC. We view them as the champions of our political calls, but we need to focus on the environment, we need to focus on making housing more affordable, we need to focus on lowering student debts will focus on gender and racial equality, those things, these are things that matter, our generations are at the top of our priority list.

Steve Martorano 
And you think generation is a kind of consensus around those issues. And you're not turning off the politics, you're saying, Here are issues, do something about them. That...

Michael Altobelli 
And we feel like they're not doing anything about it, we, we do think, for the most part, Biden's trying his best, but we'd like someone younger, or some more ideologically aligned with us, you know, I'm still going to, for the most part, be supporting him and most Generations Z members are either Democrats or independent Democrats, and most of them are very reluctant Democrats that are supporting it, because for the most part we've hit the Democratic Party's hits their self repressive calls.

Steve Martorano 
Well, I can understand why a 20-year-old would think we'd like _____ younger than an 83-year-old, I certainly appreciate that. I understand what you're talking about. Well, that leads us to what they tell us Gen Z's most fears. And a couple of them you've touched upon, would you put the environment at the top of the list of things that you guys are worried about?

Michael Altobelli 
The environment, student debt, and housing. Those are the big three. The environment is this big, overwhelming fear of our generation. It's the one that worries us most is that we don't feel like each party is trying enough to solve this crisis because it's such an overwhelming human-encompassing crisis that if we don't address this crisis now, everything addressed. It needs to be done. Now. Like I said, I think Biden is trying his best, especially with the tools he's been given but we want him to know step it up, kick it up a notch. We want the other members of the establishment for the Republican Party to go okay, okay. Let's put our divisions aside and really work on this. But they aren't so we're driving to more populist candidates on each side are saying, Okay, we'll do something about this, you need to focus on this.

Steve Martorano 
You guys also grew up in the middle of the tragedy of violence in schools for one thing, violence in general. But is your gender or is your generation acutely aware of the violence today?

Michael Altobelli 
Oh, absolutely. We, are generally a more anti-Second Amendment generation, that's probably I'd say, number three or four on the list of top issues we are dealing with. And a large chunk of my friends here is like, listen, we don't want you know, like the Second Amendment, you know what most people in our generation don't want the second amendment to be, you know, a new concept amendment to get rid of it. That's crazy talk. What we want is simply common sense gun reforms and a ban on automatic and semi-automatic rifles. We had that a lot during the Bill Clinton administration, and review and gun violence went down dramatically. Why can't we bring that back? Why can't we issue new common-sense gun reforms? And we don't know. And we feel like we're always at this could this be the...could this be the day where it happens? I was at two almost two shootings. The first one was when I was in high school. And this turns out to be a little more complicated manner. So essentially, a student was in a bathroom talking to another shoe in any threat, it was threatening how he wanted to shoot his teacher. And he pulled out something from his backpack and it was all black, and weird sheathing on it. Another student overheard and saw this and he reported this to the campus police department, which we had around three officers at school, and the school shut down for like, an hour and 10 minutes. Now turned out it was just a very weirdly shaped phone case. But everyone was like, Oh, God, this is the one. This is finally happening now, especially after a threat...a student literally threatened to murder a teacher.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, so you grow up where it's the. It's so potentially common. Violence might break out in your classroom and everything is taken seriously. And the threat is present, whether it's actual or imagined.

Michael Altobelli 
And the other one, and this is the one that seemed a little more real was I was out at the mall. And I was right next to the guy. This guy stood up and just started screaming loudly at how he said it all. He wants to end it all. He was screaming this very loudly in the entire mess hall...the cafeteria just stood up and started screaming and running out there. There were probably around two hundred people in that area. And they all this, stampeded out of there, out of fear that Oh, god, it's happening.

Steve Martorano 
It's so amazing. We're so we're talking about not being able to see the forest for the trees. But we are living in a different world. There was a time when that person who probably had, obviously mental health issues has been with us forever. I lived in New York City for years. You know, people would talk to themselves loudly and scary on street corners all over Manhattan when I lived there. They were viewed as mental health people and if you walked across the street, they were not automatically viewed as an existential threat. And that's the environment that you guys have grown up with. Everything is out of the norm and norm. That seems frightening at the moment and is viewed as a potential threat to your life. It's an outrageous good point you bring up. I'm glad you've done it. Michael Altobelli that a couple more things before we go. We haven't really, we could talk a whole nother show about social media. Where did you get your first cell phone?

Michael Altobelli 
So I was in the middle of sixth grade. And a bunch of my classmates had already gotten a phone at that point.

Steve Martorano 
How old is sixth grade,

Michael Altobelli 
In sixth grade, I was 11 and a half.

Steve Martorano 
Okay.

Michael Altobelli 
When I first got my phone, I got it because I got stuck at school, because I had a club with a club that canceled that day and I had no way to contact home. So I ended up more or less fiddling with my thumbs for about two and a half hours until my mom came to pick me up because that's when the clubs were supposed to end. And after that, I made the case my dad said hey, all my friends and classmates have phones. Can I have a phone?

Steve Martorano 
Yep.

Michael Altobelli 
And he said, Okay, fine.

Steve Martorano 
Well, on average your generation gets their first mobile phone at 10.3 years. So you're...you're right there on that number practically. It is I'm sure. Your preferred method of communication on average. People tell us that Gen Z guy people spend upwards of three hours a day on mobile devices. Would you say that's accurate?

Michael Altobelli 
Oh absolutely. A lot of our generation has television. A lot of our generation prefers to view television on our phones our bed or on a sofa rather than sending it off on the television because this is immediate access.

Steve Martorano 
So the idea of being on social media or mobile devices is kind of beside the point. I mean, if you have access to it in many forms, and it provides a really valuable service for you, of course, you're going to be on it a lot. But again, you guys grew up with it. It's not new to you. You've always had it. So you'd say at least three hours a day on mobile devices.

Michael Altobelli 
Yeah. Yeah, for the minimum.

Steve Martorano 
All right. Let me ask you a couple of things about platforms. Just just for the hell of it. What are your preferred or favorite platforms, Snapchat, and Tiktok? Instagram, tell me.

Michael Altobelli 
So for the most part, the most viewed, social media platform is actually YouTube. Our generation overwhelmingly watches YouTube as our preferred social media platform watched over more than Netflix, Hulu, or Disney Plus, when it comes to entertainment. And while Tiktok is certainly ginormous, you'd love Tiktok. That's actually number two on the list. It's not actually number one, it probably be followed by Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter, you may be able to switch around between Snapchat and Twitter. But generally, TikTok and YouTube or preferred entertainment platforms, while for more social media, social media, things like how your generation would use Facebook, we would use that with Instagram, Snapchat, or even Twitter in a way.

Steve Martorano 
Let's be clear, my generation did not use Facebook. By the time we got to it all you guys had bailed. So it, we're there. We're late to that game. Michael, thanks a lot. You're a bright guy, you know, you're going to do great. I'm going to ask you the question that I always hated. When I was in my 20s People would go well. So where are you going to be in five years? Where do you see yourself in 10 years? I'm going to ask you the question, what would you like to see happen for you? And I guess your generation over the next couple of years?

Michael Altobelli 
Oh, for me, I know it sounds counterintuitive. But I'd actually like to work for the government. I'd like to work in the public sector or to work in state government. So I can because I view it as the most financially stable job, I can get post-college, I can get a nice pension. A lot of my friends are more ambitious than me like, oh, I want to start my own company. Some of them want to just be other public servants, like many of my friends want to be teachers and help further other people's education.

Steve Martorano 
Why? You know, I certainly see you working in the public sector, I can see you running for office. As a matter of fact, Michael Altobelli, thanks so much continued success. I know you'll do well in college. As I said, I know your family very well. And you come from good people. So you've got a good, good foundation there and your head seems to be screwed on. Okay, we will put this thing up on the site, you will immediately become the darling of social media, as the spokesman for your generation. And we hope you will forgive us for doing that to you, Mike, thanks a lot, man. And thank you all. Don't forget, wherever your podcasts are had, we can have behavioralcorner.com, Instagram, and all that stuff like us on Facebook, we appreciate that as well. And we'll see you next time on the corner. Take care.

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