If there’s one thing Gen Z knows how to do, it’s setting trends.
We’ve had “everything showers”, “bed rotting”, even “bare minimum Mondays” – which have been adopted to varying degrees of social media fanfare.
And now the latest Gen Z “movement” taking the youngest generation by storm is, ironically, not that new at all.
They call it “silent walking”, that is: going for a walk without their phones, or without listening to music, podcasts, or any sort of technological distraction.
Podcaster Mady Maio takes credit for “unintentionally starting a movement” that, she promises, will “change your life”.
In a video on Tiktok, she explains her boyfriend was the one who first challenged her to take a walk without any distractions.
“No AirPods, no podcasts, no music. Just me, myself, and I,” she said in the video, which has now gained almost 500,000 views.
“And at first I was like f**k no, my anxiety could never – which is probably what you’re thinking – but something within me was like let me just try it.”
Maio said the first two minutes of her walk were “mayhem”, until she hit a “flow state”, when “suddenly you can … hear yourself.”
“Look, the universe and your intuition comes to you through whispers, so if you’re never alone with your thoughts and you never get quiet you’re gonna miss the whispers,” she said.
“And those whispers are the most important to be paying attention to.”
Maio said silent walking gave her the “clarity” she had always been looking for.
“The brain fog lifted, suddenly all these ideas are flowing into me because I’m giving them space to enter.
“Look, if I can do it, you can do it. I promise, just try it out. … Give yourself the gift of getting quiet and listening to those whispers.”
Maio may have made silent walking go viral, but the term was coined as far back as January, by New York City influencer Arielle Lorre – who also spruiked the benefits of the action on her podcast in April.
“I feel like when I walk in silence, my senses are on high alert. I smell everything, I hear everything, I am seeing everything, and it’s so grounding for me,” she said.
“I know the hot girl walk had its moment. I’m trying to make the silent walk girl, or guy, or whatever, a thing.”
Now thousands of other Gen Z’s are ditching their hot girl walk – the original walking trend that emerged from lockdown cabin fever – in favor of silence and posting about it to TikTok.
And while those who have tried the ‘silent walk’ also rave about the benefits, many people can’t believe the younger generation think walking without being plugged in is so revolutionary.
“Is this real? This is just walking … like how people did it before technology,” one person wrote.
“Gen Z just discovered walking,” another wrote.
Someone else proposed another idea: “We’ve discovered this new idea called ‘thinking’.”
A number of TikTok users mocked the “silent walkers”, saying there were a lot of things that they can do when you “log off your phone”.
“What I don’t understand is how you can look at someone walking with no technology and go holy s**t, what are they doing? That’s a new method. I haven’t seen this before,” a bamboozled TikToker replied.
The fact it is causing such a stir online points to a much bigger trend in society: the way we are so dependent on our phones.
Multiple studies have shown spending time in nature is beneficial for our health.
Almost as many studies are emerging about the harms of spending too much time on our phones.
Phones are such a distraction, the NSW government banned the devices in public high schools to stop students from “falling behind” in their studies.
Not to mention, distracted pedestrians – or “smombies” as the NRMA calls them – are at increased risk of injuries and harm when in public.
So walking without being plugged in is also just safer.
And, yet, the irony of it all is that by documenting their silent walks on social media as part of spreading the trend, these silent walkers are not, in fact, walking silently at all.
However, it is arguably a good thing that Gen Z are leaning away from their devices – even if it is just for 30 minutes a day.
