South Africa’s Generation Z is the unhappiest generation in the country and the only one trailing their global peers on happiness measures, new research reveals.
Nearly a quarter of young South Africans say their life lacks meaning, whilst a similar number feel they have lost control over their own lives as they navigate a world of expanding possibility alongside escalating complexity.
Stuck, not lazy
Olwethu Kwayiba, a programme lead at the Hasso Plattner d-school Afrika at the University of Cape Town, said the challenge facing young people is not about motivation but access to opportunity.
“Speak to enough young people and a pattern emerges: they’re not short on drive or ideas, they’re short on a way in. The problems they care about are large and systemic, and every step they consider raises 10 more questions, so many find themselves at a standstill,” Kwayiba said.
He said what this generation is missing is a framework for moving forward that allows them to read a situation clearly, ask the right questions and take deliberate steps forward even when the path is not obvious.
A human-centred approach to problem-solving
Design thinking, a human-centred approach to problem-solving, is being proposed as a solution. The method focuses on deeply understanding the people affected by a challenge, reframing what the real problem is and co-creating solutions through collaboration, empathy and experimentation.
Kwayiba explained that the approach works in three ways: it helps clarify what actually matters by identifying the specific human reality underneath a problem, it teaches the importance of framing the right question before rushing toward an answer, and it gets people moving by building rough ideas, testing them quickly and treating the results as information rather than verdict.
“The shift is not from confusion to certainty. It is from confusion to action,” he said.
Research backs the approach
A 2025 meta-analysis reviewing 18 peer-reviewed studies across more than 1 600 students from 11 countries found that design thinking significantly enhanced intrinsic motivation, creativity, resilience and adaptability, with results consistent regardless of location.
Real-world impact
Sinalo Bambeni experienced this shift firsthand. Before she encountered design thinking, approaching a complex challenge would send her into a spiral of overthinking.
“I’d theorise until I didn’t feel confident enough to take action,” Bambeni said. She added that working under tight time constraints, prototyping rough ideas and keeping momentum even when things did not go to plan changed her approach fundamentally.
“When you do that for three months, twice a week, it completely changes your outlook,” she said.
Simphiwe Petros, an MBA student researching the impact of indigenous language and teacher training on early childhood development literacy, was introduced to design thinking in a single workshop integrated into his research course.
ALSO READ: Gen Z shrinks the Festive Season: South Africa’s young adults are scaling Christmas down, not up
“That one-day workshop changed everything. It sparked an interest in engaging more with design thinking. I appreciated the human-centred approach to problem-solving,” Petros said.
He applied it directly to his MBA industry report, using empathy and deep listening to keep his research tethered to the people it was meant to serve.
Kwayiba said the mindsets behind design thinking are learnable skills rather than personality traits, and they are as useful for figuring out one’s next step in life as they are in any professional setting.
“The world is not going to get less complicated. But the difference between a generation that waits and a generation that moves is having the tools to take the first step,” he said.
ALSO READ: Gen Z: A youth rebellion across the globe
