A to Gen Z Wrapped 2024: The Best of Morning Consult's Generational Coverage

Sign up for our brand new newsletter: “From A to Gen Z.” This biweekly email will put the biggest headlines about Gen Alpha, Gen Z and millennials into context to help readers better understand these key generations. 

Welcome to Morning Consult’s new newsletter on young consumers: We’ll put the headlines you’re reading about Gen Alpha, Gen Z and millennials into context with our high frequency survey data to help you better understand exactly how they’re spending their time — and their dollars. 

For our last newsletter of the year, we’re spotlighting some of the trends that defined 2024 for each of these key consumer groups. We'll be back in your inbox in 2025 with fresh generational insights.

📺📱 Gen Alpha is streaming-obsessed 📺📱

We kicked off 2024 with a flagship report on the already headline-making Gen Alpha, or those born from 2010 onward.  

Our survey of approximately 2,000 U.S. parents with children under the age of 11 found that half (51%) of Gen Alphas are streaming video at least once a day, making it the cohort’s most popular daily activity — double-digits ahead of reading books and playing video games.

Much of this streaming is taking place on tablets, which are currently the dominant device in Alphas’ lives. That said, smartphone ownership rates eclipse tablets as children become teenagers.

However, Gen Alphas is still extremely young, meaning tablets have a yearslong runway of relevancy with this group before smartphones become the mode du jour. This is especially true considering Gen Alpha parents hold a positive view of digital learning, one of the most prominent out-of-home applications for tablets. 

▶️ Our full 2024 report on Gen Alpha’s media and entertainment habits can be found here. If you are interested in learning more about the data that powers this research, reach out to your Morning Consult contact or email [email protected]. 

👀 ➡️ Gen Z’s values and interests are shifting 👀 ➡️

2024 brought several big moments of change for Gen Z, and Morning Consult was documenting it all year long. 

Back in July — before young voters helped propel Donald Trump to victory in the 2024 presidential election — we identified a prescient trend in our Intelligence data: Gen Zers had been getting more conservative and less liberal since the start of Joe Biden’s presidency in January 2021.

But political ideologies aren’t the only part of youth culture on the move: Gen Z adults are increasingly valuing things like traditions, privacy and faith, too. Internet personalities who promote traditional, heteronormative relationships and customs — known broadly as “trad wives” and “trad husbands” — have also gained massive Gen Z followings as of late.

These are confounding and unexpected shifts for a generation so frequently hailed as progressive. But with a growing share of Gen Zers already in or rapidly approaching the throes of adulthood, they suggest that the cohort may be starting to crave relief from the pressure of global uncertainty and technology-induced decision fatigue that gripped their coming-of-age years.

▶️ To learn more about Gen Zers’ evolving beliefs, head here.

🫣🧓Millennials are getting older 🫣🧓

Like their younger counterparts, millennials are experiencing a fair share of psychographic and behavior-related changes, although they’re being driven by the passage of time more so than anything else. 

With the oldest among them in their mid-forties, millennials are now firmly in or approaching middle-age — and their beliefs are starting to reflect this. For example, the share of millennials who agree with a number of statements related to habit and certainty has grown notably over the past few years. Since early 2021, those who say they prefer a set routine in their daily life has increased by 10 percentage points and those who say they refer to themself as a “creature of habit” is up 8 points.

The good news for brands? This translates directly to brand loyalty. In March of 2021, 63% of millennials said they preferred classic and timeless as opposed to trendy; In 2024, that number is 9 percentage points higher (72%). And most importantly, the share who say they’re loyal to a product or service they like has grown too — from 82% to 89%. Shunning trends in favor of tried-and-true products and services means that, as long as companies can provide a quality product and positive customer experience, millennials will be more likely to stick around than to move on to the newest fad.

▶️ Check out our archive of research on Millennials here. 

What Else We’re Reading

• The Year Creators Took Over (The New Yorker)
• AI startups are snatching up San Francisco real estate as Gen Z craves office life (CNBC)
• How the American Express CMO turned credit cards into Gen Z's passport to culture (Fast Company)
• Young Men Are Making Risky Bets on Crypto and Politics—and Raking It In Right Now (The Wall Street Journal)

Coming Up

1/14  2025 Trends Webinar. Our analysts will unpack what to expect in the new year across several key categories, including retail, travel and social media marketing. Sign up here.