TikTokers love a problem, particularly if it includes some type of self-imposed hibernation interval that can rework their lives and repay in bodily or monetary success.
Presently, my feed is full of young people collaborating in “The Great Lock-In,” a three-month problem that started in September and lasts by way of the tip of the 12 months. The aim is that individuals enter January having already accomplished a set of objectives and established sure habits, a jumpstart on “New 12 months, New Me.”
“Locking in” has develop into its personal aesthetic. Movies underneath the #thegreatlockin and #lockingin hashtags characteristic Zoomers in sterile flats sporting impartial exercise garments. They’re often fixing wholesome meals, strolling on treadmills, and making lists in journals, full with timestamps for every exercise. There are inspirational slideshows set to rap songs. Others characteristic soundbites from iconic NBA gamers, like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan.
“It’s all about programming your thoughts to go exhausting for a dash of time,” says influencer Tatiana Forbes in a TikTok video. “It’s meant to be this time the place you place forth immense effort in some space of your life.”
It’s curious that locking in is a proper problem. With origins in soccer and video-game tradition, the time period itself describes a interval of hyperfocus with a view to get stuff performed. On-line, locking in has develop into the final word Gen-Z mantra. Folks publish about locking in on the gymnasium, locking in at work, locking in to complete books, locking in to remain hydrated, and locking in to easily get by way of the day.
In fact, this collective want for productiveness and private development isn’t a brand new phenomenon. If Gen Z appears obsessive about assigning themselves an inventory of objectives each few months, it’s most likely as a result of they witnessed or at the least felt the residual results of millennial hustle tradition. Whereas millennials have been reacting to their very own technology’s misfortune — specifically, the Nice Recession — Zoomers try to shake off the mind rot of digital residing within the pandemic and navigate the financial uncertainty introduced on by synthetic intelligence and the second Trump administration.
So what precisely is Gen Z locking in for, and the way does the mantra manifest of their lives past TikTok? Is locking in an act of resistance, a coping mechanism, or only a efficiency? The reply is a little bit of the whole lot.
Gen Z desires to get off their telephones — with the assistance of their telephones
There are some apparent the reason why younger individuals are craving focus. As a lot as locking in is about finishing duties, for some, it additionally means eliminating distractions. Ideas for locking in on social media persistently embody limiting display screen time earlier than mattress. Some steerage is extra excessive, encouraging customers to “lock in and disappear” from social media with the expectation that they’ll finally return as their improved self.
Even when the time away from their telephones is momentary, many younger individuals are aspiring to digital minimalism, a time period popularized by Georgetown College professor and creator Cal Newport. There’s now a preferred subreddit dedicated to selling digital minimalism as a way of life, a strategy to recharge and dwell extra deliberately.
Locking in isn’t that totally different from one other idea coined by Newport: deep work. And it’s seemingly simply the Gen Z model of a millennial-era concept. This, based on Newport, refers to “the act of focusing with out distraction on a cognitively demanding process.” Newport says that, based on younger folks he’s talked to, locking in is “particularly a response to smartphones” and feeling like they’re “underneath the spell of digital consideration purveyors.”
“It will be not possible for them to keep away from noticing the diploma to which these gadgets are taking them away from basically each significant exercise and manipulating their psychology,” Newport advised me.
Current research reveal as a lot. Some 83 % of Gen Z respondents mentioned they’ve an unhealthy relationship with their cellphone, in comparison with 74 % for different generations, based on the 2024 BePresent Digital Wellness Report. Equally, 72 % of Gen Z members surveyed in a 2025 study by Harmony Healthcare IT mentioned that their psychological well being would enhance if apps have been “much less addictive.” This 12 months’s Pinterest Summer Trend Report discovered that the searches on the platform for “digital detox imaginative and prescient board” have been trending up by 273 %.
Roland Weihrach/Image Alliance through Getty Photographs
Nonetheless, the act of being lively, for a lot of, necessitates posting on TikTok or Instagram, which you would possibly say is antithetical to the entire distraction-free idea of locking in. The locked-in way of life falls right into a broader class of widespread aspirational content material on-line that, following the COVID-19 pandemic, revolves primarily round wellness and health. There’s social-media capital in wanting like somebody who’s locked in.
So what’s locking in truly inspiring younger folks to do with their lives? You’d assume the purpose of getting off your cellphone can be to interact in human connection. However Gen Z has constructed a fame for being the loneliest generation, with higher isolation rates than millennials and Gen X-ers, due partly to pandemic lockdowns and heavier reliance on social media. An unsure financial system can also be maintaining Gen Z caught in a everlasting cocoon.
Gen Z’s infinite pursuit of a greater self
Locking in defies earlier stereotypes we’ve held about Gen Z and its relationship to work. Gen Z is way from lazy — quite, research have discovered that Gen Z has a special perspective on their skilled lives than what grind tradition taught millennials. Zoomers are extra centered on creating work–life stability than climbing the company ladder, with solely 6 % saying that attaining a management place is a major profession aim, based on a 2025 Deloitte survey. A LinkedIn examine additionally discovered that Gen Z was the almost definitely technology to reject jobs that don’t provide flexible work policies. However simply because Gen Z isn’t as wanting to dedicate themselves to an organization doesn’t imply they aren’t busy.
“Gen Z isn’t extra obsessive about productiveness, however quite, obsessive about productiveness in a special context,” says Kate Lindsay, co-founder of the e-newsletter Embedded and co-host of the podcast ICYMI. “Anecdotally, millennials take pleasure in being productive in relation to their profession, whereas Gen Z is extra centered on productiveness as self-improvement — ‘locking in,’ ‘glowing up,’ and many others.”
Lindsay sees locking in as a response to our resting state changing into “very passive.” “We’re scrolling, we’re binging, we’re bed-rotting,” she mentioned. “Locking in is a manner of kick-starting ourselves out of that and right into a state that’s extra lively.”
This deal with self-improvement may be defined by a labor market that has develop into extremely aggressive for younger folks following the COVID-19 pandemic, together with a declining number of entry-level jobs on account of AI. A Financial institution of America Institute report found that over 13 % of unemployed People this previous July have been “new entrants” or these with out prior work expertise, a bunch that “skews towards Gen Z.”
Whereas “locking in” can seem like a shallow enterprise to some, it permits folks to “really feel in command of their lives in an financial system that seemingly gives little safety,” based on freelance author and editor Chiara Wilkinson, who coated “The Nice Lock In” in British Vogue.
“Most of the guarantees we have been offered within the conventional narrative of rising up now appear out of attain for the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants,” Wilkinson advised me. “Elements like crippling pupil debt, rising home costs, inflation, and bleak graduate prospects — particularly as AI threatens entry-level jobs — have left many Gen Z-ers unhappy with the present state of play.”
In its most radical interpretation, locking in looks like a strategy to combat again towards tech corporations which have shortened our consideration spans and degraded our social lives. Nevertheless, in its most typical use, the locking-in development exhibits Gen Z pursuing an limitless cycle of self-improvement that doesn’t provide a repair to any of their technology’s issues.
You must surprise: With all these rule-based makes an attempt to enhance their lives, is Gen Z factoring in enjoyable?
“A lot of Gen Z’s worldview is formed by financial nervousness, and plenty of can really feel uneasy after they’re not being productive,” Wilkinson says. “The present financial constructions would possibly make ‘having enjoyable’ troublesome. Even ‘free’ enjoyable, like going for a stroll, or hanging at a mate’s home, comes with a level of trade-off.”
For now, it looks like “locking in” is just a strategy to get by, not essentially a strategy to get higher. We’ll know that life for Gen Z has lastly improved after they don’t must attempt as exhausting.
