TikTokers love a challenge, especially if it involves some kind of self-imposed period of hibernation that will transform their lives and pay off in physical or financial success.
Currently, my feed is full of young people participating in “The Great Lock-In,” a three-month challenge that started in September and runs until the end of the year. The goal is for participants to arrive at January having already completed a series of goals and established certain habits, a push toward “New Year, New Me.”
“Lockdown” has become its own aesthetic. Videos under the hashtags #thegreatlockin and #lockingin show Zoomers in sterilized apartments wearing neutral sportswear. They typically prepare healthy meals, walk on treadmills, and make lists in journals, with time stamps for each activity. There are inspiring slideshows with rap songs. Others include clips from iconic NBA players such as Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.
“It’s about programming your mind to push yourself over a period of time,” influencer Tatiana Forbes says in a TikTok video. “It’s meant to be this moment where you make immense effort in some area of your life.”
It’s funny that locking yourself in is a formal challenge. With origins in football and video game culture, the term itself describes a period of hyper-focus on getting things done. Online, locking in has become the ultimate mantra of Gen Z. People post about locking in at the gym, locking in at work, locking in to finish books, locking in to stay hydrated, and locking in to just get through the day.
Of course, this collective desire for productivity and personal growth is not a new phenomenon. If Generation Z seems obsessed with assigning themselves a list of goals every few months, it’s probably because they witnessed or at least felt the residual effects of millennial hustle culture. As millennials reacted to their own generation’s misfortune, namely the Great Recession, Zoomers are trying to shake off the brain rot of digital life during the pandemic and navigate the economic uncertainty brought on by artificial intelligence and the second Trump administration.
So what exactly is Gen Z looking forward to, and how does the mantra manifest in their lives beyond TikTok? Is locking yourself away an act of resistance, a coping mechanism, or simply an act? The answer is a little of everything.
Generation Z wants to get off their phones, with the help of their phones
There are some obvious reasons why young people crave concentration. As much as lockdown is about completing tasks, for some it also means eliminating distractions. Tips for consistently connecting to social media include limiting screen time before bed. Some orientations are more extreme, encouraging users to “lock out and disappear” from social media with the expectation that they will eventually return as themselves.
Even if the time away from their phones is temporary, many young people aspire to digital minimalism, a term popularized by Georgetown University professor and author Cal Newport. There is now a popular subreddit dedicated to promoting digital minimalism as a lifestyle, a way to recharge and live more intentionally.
Blocking is not that different from another concept Newport coined: deep work. And apparently it’s just Gen Z’s version of a millennial-era idea. This, according to Newport, refers to “the act of concentrating without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.” Newport says that, according to the young people he spoke to, being locked in is “specifically a reaction to smartphones” and feeling like they are “under the spell of digital care providers.”
“It would be impossible for them to avoid realizing the degree to which these devices essentially remove them from all meaningful activity and manipulate their psychology,” Newport told me.
Recent studies reveal it. About 83 percent of Gen Z respondents said they have an unhealthy relationship with their phone, compared to 74 percent of other generations, according to the BePresent Digital Wellbeing Report 2024. Similarly, 72 percent of Gen Z members surveyed in a 2025 study by Harmony Healthcare IT said their mental health would improve if apps were “less addictive.” This year’s Pinterest Summer Trends Report found that searches on the platform for “digital detox vision board” were trending up 273 percent.
Roland Weihrach/Picture Alliance via Getty Images
Still, the act of being active, for many, requires posting to TikTok or Instagram, which could be said to be the antithesis of the concept of locking yourself away without distractions. The lockdown lifestyle falls into a broader category of popular aspirational content online which, following the Covid-19 pandemic, largely revolves around wellbeing and fitness. There is capital in social networks, apparently someone is locked up.
So what is it that really inspires young people to do with their lives? You would think the goal of hanging up the phone would be to establish a human connection. But Generation Z has earned a reputation as the loneliest generation, with higher rates of isolation than millennials and Generation X, due in part to pandemic lockdowns and a greater reliance on social media. An uncertain economy also keeps Generation Z trapped in a permanent cocoon.
Generation Z’s endless quest for a better self
Locking down challenges previous stereotypes we’ve had about Generation Z and their relationship to work. Generation Z is far from lazy; Rather, studies have found that Generation Z has a different perspective on their professional life than what routine culture taught millennials. Zoomers are more focused on creating a work-life balance than climbing the corporate ladder, and only 6 percent say reaching a leadership position is a top career goal, according to a 2025 Deloitte survey. A LinkedIn study also found that Generation Z was the generation most likely to turn down jobs that don’t offer flexible work policies. But just because Generation Z isn’t as eager to pursue a business doesn’t mean they’re not busy.
“Gen Z is not more obsessed with productivity, but rather, obsessed with productivity in a different context,” says Kate Lindsay, co-founder of the Embedded newsletter and co-host of the podcast. ICYMI. “Anecdotally, millennials enjoy being productive in relation to their career, while Generation Z focuses more on productivity as a form of self-improvement: ‘block,’ ‘shine,’ etc.”
Lindsay sees blocking as a response to our resting state becoming “very passive.” “We scroll, we binge, we rot,” he said. “Locking ourselves in is a way to push us out of that and into a more active state.”
This focus on self-improvement can be explained by a job market that has become highly competitive for young people after the Covid-19 pandemic, including a declining number of entry-level jobs due to AI. A Bank of America Institute report found that more than 13 percent of unemployed Americans last July were “new entrants” or those without prior work experience, a group that “leans toward Generation Z.”
While “locking down” may seem like a superficial undertaking to some, it allows people “to feel in control of their lives in an economy that seemingly offers little security,” according to freelance writer and editor Chiara Wilkinson, who covered “The Great Lock In” in British Vogue.
“Many of the promises we were sold in the traditional narrative of growing up now seem out of reach for the vast majority of the population,” Wilkinson told me. “Factors such as crippling student debt, rising housing prices, inflation, and bleak prospects for graduates (especially as AI threatens entry-level jobs) have left many members of Generation Z dissatisfied with the current situation.”
In its most radical interpretation, locking down seems like a way to fight back against the tech companies that have shortened our attention spans and degraded our social lives. However, in its most common use, the lockdown trend shows Generation Z pursuing an endless cycle of self-improvement that offers no solution to any of their generation’s problems.
It begs the question: With all these rule-based attempts to improve their lives, is Gen Z considering the fun?
“Much of Gen Z’s worldview is shaped by economic anxiety, and many can feel uncomfortable when they are not being productive,” Wilkinson says. “Current economic structures can make ‘having fun’ difficult. Even ‘free’ fun, like going for a walk or hanging out at a friend’s house, comes with some degree of compensation.”
For now, it seems that “locking out” is simply a way to survive, not necessarily a way to improve. We’ll know that Gen Z’s lives have finally gotten better when they don’t have to work as hard.