We’re just starting to understand this next generation - 13 to 23 year-olds - but we’ve seen that they use creativity in their daily life more than any other generation and we want to help them do that. We thought it would be inspiring to conduct a global survey looking at what creatively fuels this cohort, who based on their creative appetite, we’ve dubbed “Generation Create.”
We partnered with The Harris Poll and surveyed 5,488 total respondents across 5 countries: the US, UK, Japan, Germany and Australia. We asked all generations about the activities, behaviors and conditions that help them achieve peak creativity, and we got to see how Gen Create is unique.
What we found is that Gen Create are digital natives who are likelier than any other generation to say that both social media and social activism make them more creative.
Here are some of our favorite findings.
Gen Create Snapshot
How Gen Create Aligns with the Overall Population
Listening to music is the top activity that sharpens creativity of all people surveyed across five countries (57%), and even more so for Gen Create’s creativity than people ages 24+ (67% vs. 56%). Pop music is the #1 music for creativity (45% Gen Create vs. 33% people ages 24+).
Cooking is the #2 behavior that makes the general population more creative - Gen Create are even more likely than people ages 24+ to say that cooking makes them more creative (62% vs. 56%).
Overall, people think that the optimal age for creativity is 35 on average. Gen Create believes that the peak age for creativity is 23 years old, on average.
56% of all Gen Create across five countries surveyed consider themselves creative vs. 44% of people ages 24+. US Gen Create is the group who considers itself as the most creative (66%), followed by Australian Gen Create (64%), UK Gen Create (62%), German Gen Create (58%) and Japanese Gen Create (22%).
Working From Home
47% of Gen Create say that checking social media makes them more creative, compared to only 30% of people ages 24+.
Compared to people ages 24+, Gen Create’s creativity is more likely to be strongly impacted by sleep (38% vs. 29%), time of day (32% vs. 26%) and working out (26% vs.19%).
Gen Create are significantly more likely than people ages 24+ to agree that they do something creative every day (63% vs. 57%) and likelier to say that doing something creative daily benefits their work/academic studies (78% vs. 63%).
Gen Create are also much more likely than ages 24+ to say that when they do work or study, they take a break at least once an hour to optimize creativity (62% vs. 53%).
Gen Create Are Inspired By Their People And Helping Others
The majority of Gen Create (56%) agree that social activism is the most important issue to them compared to 47% of people ages 24+ sharing this opinion.
Gen Create are also more likely than people ages 24+ to say that charity work makes them more creative (50% vs. 39%).
Gen Create Around The World
US Gen Create are more likely than their counterparts in all other countries to say the decor of where they are, and what they’re wearing, have a strong impact on their creativity (39% vs. 29% Australia Gen Z, 28% UK Gen Z, 22% Germany Gen Z, 11% Japan Gen Z; 34% vs. 31% UK Gen Z, 28% Australia Gen Z, 27% Germany Gen Z, 20% Japan Gen Z).
Japan’s Gen Create are at least twice as likely as any other country’s Gen Create to cite music as their professional field of interest (32% vs. 13% Germany Gen Create, 12% Australia Gen Create, 12% US Gen Create, and 8% UK Gen Create).
German Gen Create is the group that is most likely to agree that “Social Activism is the Most Important Issue to Me” - 69% vs. 55% US Gen Create, 52% UK Gen Create, 52% Australia Gen Create and 52% Japan Gen Create.
German Gen Create are more likely than Gen Create in any other country to be interested in fashion design and engineering (14% vs. 8% Australia Gen Z, 7% UK Gen Z, 4% US Gen Z and 2% Japan Gen Z; 12% vs. 6% US Gen Z, 6% UK Gen Z, 5% Australia Gen Z and 4% Japan Gen Z).
Following influencers is the aspect of social media that is more likely to fuel UK Gen Create’s creativity than that of Gen Create in other countries (30% vs. 28% US Gen Create, 26% Germany Gen Create, 22% Australia Gen Create and 10% Japan Gen Create).
The UK’s Gen Create is the group that is the most likely to say that watching content makes them feel more creative - 68% vs. 63% Australia Gen Create, 60% US Gen Create, 48% Germany Gen Create and 12% Japan Gen Create.
Australia Gen Create is the most likely group to say that playing video games and listening to podcasts make them feel more creative (55% vs. 54% US Gen Create, 54% UK Gen Create, 46% Germany Gen Create and 20% Japan Gen Create; 47% vs. 46% UK Gen Create, 43% Germany Gen Create, 42% US Gen Create and 18% Japan Gen Create).
This survey was conducted online by The Harris Poll on behalf of Adobe Inc. between May 14-19, 2020, among 5,488 teens and adults ages 13+ in the US (n=1,023), UK (n=1,114), Germany (n=1,183), Australia (n=1,113), and Japan (n=1,055).
Raw data were weighted by selected demographic variables where necessary to reflect the general teen and adult population in each country.
All sample surveys and polls, whether or not they use probability sampling, are subject to multiple sources of error which are most often not possible to quantify or estimate, including sampling error, coverage error, error associated with nonresponse, error associated with question wording and response options, and post-survey weighting and adjustments. Therefore, Harris Poll avoids the words “margin of error” as they are misleading. All that can be calculated are different possible sampling errors with different probabilities for pure, unweighted, random samples with 100% response rates. These are only theoretical because no published polls come close to this ideal.
Respondents for this survey were selected among those who have agreed to participate in online surveys.
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Credits:
Created with images by Alex Holyoake - "Mural of woman’s neon face" • Rafaela Biazi - "SPLASH! MAKE YOUR MARK" • Photographee.eu - "Posters mock-up in study space" • Ludovic François - "Girl holds bird" • William Navarro - "untitled image"