Determining The Needs of Social Affordance in an Open Public Space for Gen Z

Gen Z, who are adolescents, need places for social interaction, places for retreat, and places for restoration to support their development phase. Their needs could be settled by utilizing the space and perceiving the social affordances of open public spaces. The study examined the social affordances of open public space that sustain Gen Z’s development needs. The study was conducted in a famous open public space in Yogyakarta, Titik 0 km Yogyakarta. Questionnaires and observations were carried out for data collection from the visitors of Titik 0 km Yogyakarta between 12-25 years old. The result indicated that Gen Z tends to utilize the physical setting of the open public space to achieve social interaction needs. The variety of seating facilities, enclosure levels, and crowding influenced Gen Z’s decision to do activities in certain locations. The finding indicated the adolescent’s needs for social interaction, retreat, and restoration experiences could be obtained from perceived social affordances by doing social activities in open public spaces. More needs are achieved in open public spaces, more opportunities for Gen Z to enhance their development quality.


Introduction
Z-generations are young people nowadays.Individuals who were born between 1996-2010 [1].Zgenerations live with digital and technology as daily takes [2][3][4].They live with an abundance of information technology [3].Digital exposure causes Z-generations as visual learners and aesthetic addicts [5].Z-generations are people in a productive age for school and work [6].From the age group, Z-generations are included in adolescents.Adolescence is critical time as a transition phase from children to adult [7].This phase is experienced by physical, cognitive, social, and psychological changes [8].Adolescent is known as an individual who has an increased need for peer interaction as a social stimulus [9].Adolescents tend to spend their time with friends more than with family and build their peer relationships more complex [9].It helps them to know how to solve problems and prepare for a better life as an adult later [10].
Aside from their needs for development, changes of psychological states and pressure from school and work environment could affect their mental health [11].Massive digital exposure could make it worse.Exaggerate engagement with technology could reduce concentration and attention span [11].
The need for open public spaces has increased to restore and recover their conditions [12].Good mental health for adolescents can support social, intelligence, and emotional development, and then help the transition from children to the adult phase [13].
Teenagers need a safe place without any surveillance from parents [14].They tend to do activities at places beyond their daily routine [15].This behavior could improve independence skills and responsibilities.Adolescents tend to be in open public spaces to improve their social relationship skills [16,17].Aside from the opportunity to achieve psycho-social needs [10], participating in activity in open public spaces give a lot of benefits to adolescents.Interaction with other people in open public spaces could develop adolescent relationships with their environment [18].Spending time in open public spaces is important for escalating social interaction and engaging with others, or simply enjoying a change of scenery and fresh air [19].Being in an outdoor environment has been found to be beneficial to psychological health by lowering stress levels and improving mood and concentration [11].
Open public spaces are communal spaces for people from various circles.The diversity of facilities and users could provide opportunities for a variety of activities.Physical characteristics that exist in a public space could influence the activity within the space [20].The presence of shade rooms, rest spaces, activity spaces, and accessibility could affect users in their activities in public spaces [21].
An environment has properties that are perceived by the actor.It's called affordances.This concept was introduced by Gibson (1986) for the first time.Affordances are the possibility for action afforded to an observer by an object in the environment [22,23].Gibson states that affordances can have physical or social components [24].This study will focus on the social components.Social affordances by Clark talked about the needs related to adolescent development [25].The needs can be measured by observing the purpose of the teenager's activity in certain spaces.Clark discussed that social affordances could define the place preferences for adolescents [25].The study indicated that town centers can provide spaces for social interaction and retreats.
Social affordances have been disscussed in the previous study with similar topics.However, the studies discussed primarily focus on the independence and mobility of adolescents in open public spaces [26,27].The other research was focused on the ways adolescents make use of, value, and engage with urban public spaces [28].It still lacks an exploration of how space utilization could support the development needs by examining the social affordances.Here, we examine the social affordances of open public spaces to find out how Z-generation's activities in open public spaces could contribute to their development needs.
This paper aims to determine the social affordances from Z-generation perspectives in open public spaces.The research purpose is to understand how Z-generation teenagers utilize public spaces by perceived affordances to pursue their needs in supporting their development.The result of this study will show the needs of Z-generations in public spaces that contribute to their development needs.Such understanding will provide valuable information to help determine which design is suitable for Zgenerations, especially adolescents nowadays.

Field of Study
The research was conducted in Yogyakarta.The study field is an urban public space called Titik 0 km Yogyakarta, which is pedestrian paths at the node of central Yogyakarta.This location was selected because most visitors are from young people groups.It is one of the famous destinations in Yogyakarta, a pedestrian path connected to the famous Malioboro tourism area.Apart from its proximity to Malioboro, the presence of heritage buildings in the surrounding area adds attractiveness to Titik 0 km as a public space.Titik 0 km is located at the intersection of Jl.Panembahan Senopati, Jl.KH.Dahlan, Jl.Pangurakan, and Jl.Margomulyo.The place is divided into west side area and the east side area (figure.1).Titik 0 km Yogyakarta function as a pedestrian and public space that provide amenities for people to do activities in it, such as street furniture like benches, signage, trash bins, street lighting, vegetation, bollards for road barriers, etc.The site study can be accessed for 24 hours.I.Yogyakarta (76%), followed by Jawa Timur with 10%, then Jawa Tengah and Jawa Barat about 7% each.Participants became the object of the observation and questionnaire respondents.

Observations. Observation was executed to examine activity patterns and the utilized physical
elements in an open public space.The respondents' behaviors were observed with person-centered mapping.Observations were done by recording the actors' flow activities in the study field.The observations' duration differs depending on how long the actor is in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.Observation started when actors began to be seen at the site.Observations ended when the participant left the research location or consistently at the exact location for more than 30 minutes.

Questionnaires.
Questionnaires were carried out to identify respondents' profiles and activity tendencies, along with determining the social affordances of Z-generations in an open public space.The measurement of social affordances used taxonomy by Clark (2002).The affordances taxonomy is related to developmental needs in adolescence, the need for places of social interaction, places of retreat, and places of restorative.The taxonomy was summarized at some point and translated into Indonesian language (table 1).The activities chosen by the Gen Z in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta include relaxing (50%), taking pictures (38%), chatting (11%), and exercising (1%) (figure .3).Leisure activities such as relaxing is chosen by all age groups and genders.A large percentage of leisure activities by Gen Z indicated a need for recovery for generation-Z.Relaxing activities are carried out to restore the condition of generation Z after experiencing fatigue and boredom from school or work [12].

Space Utilization by Gen Z
Taking pictures and chatting only chosen by girls.Taking pictures are more intended by girls than boys.This result enriched the previous study about favoriteness for taking pictures by teenagers [34,35].Chatting also recorded to be liked by girls more than boys.The finding consistent with late studies that indicated chatting as preferrable activities in public spaces [10,29,36].Social activities like chatting could support teenagers' sosial communication.Conversely, exercise only showed by boys in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.It was consistent with previous study that boys prefer doing active activities [10].

Space Characteristics for Gen Z's Activities
Spatial use patterns were observed in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.The result showed that users tend to use the seating facilities while doing activities in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta (figure.4).The seating facilities are mostly used by the groups to sit, because they more often do passive and social activities, such as chatting, playing handphones, relaxing, and taking pictures.The observation results indicated that each zone has different use tendencies.It showed that in most cases, Z-generations were chatting and taking pictures on the east side and the southwest side of Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.On the east side, Z-generations tend to use the area of square-shaped benches, the area of backrest benches, and the area of backless benches.On the southwest side, Z-generations are likely to use the area of square-shaped benches and the area of backrest benches.The utilization of benches gives user comfortability.The statement aligned with the evidence from previous studies.İhtiyar & Caymaz [37] said that benches give comforts for users.
The northwest side was less utilized than the other side of Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.The area tends to be used for relaxing.Chatting is also found in this area with lower percentages.Less utilization in this area is caused by openness of the area.This area have high enclosure by rigid big vegetations arrangement [38].In this area, Gen Z preferred to do activities in the edge that provide more openness.The less crowding also become the reason for gen Z in using this area.Z-generations utilized the area of bollards and the planter edges of vegetation.Those furnitures were used when the crowding is high IOP Publishing doi:10.1088/1755-1315/1301/1/0120057 in the other sides.It showed the consistensy by İhtiyar & Caymaz [37] that notions these kind of street furniture allow people to utilize in peak hours.
The finding indicated that Z-generation utilized different physical settings of seating facilities.Each setting has differences that are liked by users.Those facilities give opportunities for Z-generations to do social activities.This result substantiates the previous studies that notions about the opportunities of uses from provided the amenities in open public spaces [30].The crowding of Titik 0 km Yogyakarta also influenced Gen Z decision in choosing location for doing their desired activities.

Social Affordances in Open Public Space for Gen Z
Activities in open public spaces are expected to meet the needs of Generation Z. Z-generations are highlighted for their social needs, retreat needs, and restoration needs.The questionnaire results were correlated with the observation results.The activities by Gen Z that were recorded in observation linked to the social affordances that were chosen by respondents in questionnaires.The social affordances result showed the kind of activity that accomplished the Gen Z needs for enhancing their development phase (figure.5,6,7).

Figure 5. Social Affordances for Social Interactions
The finding indicated that social interactions could be accomplished by doing activities that were done by Gen Z in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta, such as taking pictures, playing with phone, chatting/ doing conversations, relaxing, and doing exercise (figure.5).Taking pictures and chatting/doing conversation are the most activities that encouraging social interaction between gen Z in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.Playing phone also found encourages Gen Z doing social interaction.This activity might urge social interaction digitally not by physically.The convenience of technology encourages Gen Z to be more engaged in communicating with people who are far away [39].).In this study, Gen Z prefer to seek for freedom than for retreat.In order to accomplished this need, chatting become the common activity that can support the freedom needs for Gen Z in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.The activities were executed in various physical settings of Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.The finding showed that activity setting affects the purpose of the activity.Table 2 indicated that east side pedestrian more utilized to obtains social interaction and retreat needs.In contrary, south side pedestrian more used to gains restoration experience for Gen Z.The space arrangements intended to influence how Gen Z perceived the social affordances in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta.They noticed the opportunity from the arrangement in Titik 0 km Yogyakarta would provide their needs socially.The east side of pedestrian Titik 0 km Yogyakarta has spatial characteristics with more variance of seating facilities, more openness and closure from seating "framing".This characteristic could provide more social interaction and freedom.The statement aligned with the previous studies that talked about the more variance of seating facilities with great visibility, the more opportunity for user to encourages social interaction and freedom [30], [40].The west side of pedestrian Titik 0 km Yogyakarta, which is divided into north and south area, have different spatial characteristics.The south area of this side similar with the east side of the pedestrian.It has more seating facilities and has more closure.However, this side is less utilization than the east side.The characteristics of the south area encourage Gen Z to do social nor restorative activities.The finding indicated that less crowding in open public spaces can reduces stress.It consistent with late studies that give same statement [41].In other side, the north area of this side has fewer seating facilities with higher enclosure.This area also has less crowding.These conditions increase the urges of achieving the restoration needs.Higher closures gives higher safety [40].Lower crowd gives lower stress [41].
As a result, the spatial arrangements and characteristics of each side of the pedestrian Titik 0 km Yogyakarta, could influence the opportunity of doing desired activities that help gen Z developments.Certain activities were described by the environment and enrich the late studies about social affordances for adolescent in different places by Clark [25].The finding was expected to be a significant information for designer and urban designers when designing the urban design that supposed to help satisfy adolescent' need in their development phase.

Conclusion
This study concluded that social affordances in open public spaces could satisfy Gen Z's needs in the aspects of social interactions, retreats and freedom, and restorations.The spatial arrangement has influenced the process of perceiving the social affordances to seek the opportunity of doing certain activities.Their characters as digital natives when perceived social affordances in open public space was lack of discussion in this study.The effect of gadget uses while doing activities in open public spaces on the quality of adolescent's development physically and digitally could be explored in future research.

Table 2 .
Location Evaluation for Each Social Affordances