The Gen Z POV
Waynesburg senior talks travel, screen time, climate change
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is one in a monthlong series of profiles of the people who live and work in Washington, Greene and Fayette counties, in celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
Gen Z may get painted by the media as an entitled, chronically online generation, but there’s a connection between them and the kids depicted in “American Graffiti,” “Dazed and Confused,” and “Superbad.”
At their core, the group of young people who comprise Gen Z have wants and desires much like their Millennial and Gen X parents, and like their Boomer and Greatest Generation grandparents before them: “I like to draw, I like to sleep, I like to listen to music. Really basic things,” said Will Pulkownik, a 17-year-old from Waynesburg.
Pulkownik is spending the summer before his senior year at Waynesburg Central High School at day camp – as a counselor, for the Greene County Department of Recreation’s day camp program. When he isn’t working, though, Pulkownik holes up in his room.
“I personally spend a lot of time just in my room working on things, on my computer. Very young, I discovered I really enjoyed drawing, I really enjoyed animating. I’m a very creative person,” Pulkownik said.
Given that his favorite way to pass the time is online – a Gen Z stereotype – it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Pulkownik is a self-proclaimed iPad kid.
“I was always on my iPad,” he said.
Though he enjoys being online, Pulkownik understands the drawbacks to life lived through a screen, and thinks society would be better with less screen time.
“It’s beneficial, but I feel like it’s kind of stunting creativity. AI, similar thing: It’s definitely helpful, but people need to learn to not use it all the time. Because, I mean, you aren’t using your whole brain if you’re just getting the computer to do everything for you.”
Life in the real world has been rich for this high schooler, whose annual family vacations have taken him as near as Jellystone campgrounds and as far as the Bahamas and Europe.
“I enjoy the scenic, cooler-temperature environments over, like, the beach,” Pulkownik said.
For his senior graduation, he, his older sister Lucy, and their parents are heading back to Alaska, Pulkownik’s favorite vacation location to date.
“We did this, it was like a seven-hour train ride just through the mountains,” Pulkownik recalled. “It was like a glass-top, two-layer train. It was so cool. I loved it so much. We’re doing it again when we go back. That was my favorite part.”
Seeing places like Alaska and Iceland (his other favorite vacation) is especially important to Pulkownik because he, like many Gen Zers, is worried about climate change and its impact not only on travel, but on daily life.
“I think climate change is a big thing. I know a lot of people feel that’s not, that it’s not something to worry about. I feel like that’s definitely something to worry about. That’s something we’re going to have to deal with when we’re older, the consequences of people just not taking action, like, right now,” he said.
The youth on the cusp of adulthood has plenty of time to be the change. Right now, though, it’s the lazy, hazy days of summer. And Pulkownik, who serves as president of both the high school drama and safety clubs and has his sights set on Spanish club presidency, too, is eager to simply live in the moment and soak up this summer.
“I take things one thing at a time,” he said. “Roll with the punches.”