The Transformation of Intimacy: Generation Z's Love and Friendship Relationships Redefined

The sociological literature on emotions and love has pointed out that, today’s uninhibited emotional freedom in the choice of potential partners has, paradoxically, led to emotional ambiguity, insecurity, and a “commitment-phobia”. This emotional ambivalence is amplified by the modern imperative of self-realization which contradicts the self-sacrificing requirements of love commitment. As Ilouz (2019) writes, freedom facilitates the opposite of what it sought to achieve. As relationships become more “liquid” and likely to (quickly) dissolve, “negative sociability” and “unloving” -the individual’s choice not to love- become common phenomena worthy of our sociological attention.

Through semi-structured interviews, this study aims to empirically investigate today’s transformation of intimacy and the changing perceptions of love and friendship by focusing on the experiences of Greek undergraduate students. Student life is characterized by flexibility of choices, spontaneity, and the questing of mainstream social norms and conventions. As part of the age cohort which is frequently identified by the popular media and researchers as GenZ, the study’s population is a technology-savvy group of (new)digital natives, who have spent their formative years during the pandemic. Their early engagement with technology, especially with social media, as well as evolving social norms, have shaped their perceptions of self and others, their notions of intimacy, and the “instrumental” way of communicating emotions.

Today’s youth is caught up between two co-existing conflicting cultural scripts which on the one hand continue to reproduce idealized, everlasting notions of love promoted by the media and consumer cultures, and on the other overpromote the rationalization of emotions and relationships. Taking also into account cultural and gender differences, the study intends to address how the emphasis on individualism, self-realization, and the rationalization of love -whereby love becomes an object of endless investigation and self-scrutiny - shape today’s youth’s understanding of self and their experience of intimate relationships.