Millennials Really Aren’t That Bad.
Lately there seems to be a rash of articles online talking about Millennials, or those born between about 1982 and 1996. I have read article after article that outlines how Millennials lack work ethic, need petty praise and feel entitled. These articles seems to portray Millennials as a very homogeneous group that feel like everything is owed to them. I think that it is bad practice to paint an entire generation based on a few individuals and some assumptions that have not been shown to be true. This isn’t really a new way of thinking, every generation has assumptions about them, which are almost always proven wrong in the end.
Millennials Aren’t Than Different From Previous Generations
Take Generation X, my parent’s generation. A recent article on CNN.com showed that researchers found that the myths about GenX were actually dead wrong. It was characterized as a generation of slackers who were disengaged and isolationist, depressed and neglectful parents. These myths were based on what made them different from previous generations and how that might negatively influence them. Why is it that no one ever seems to look at the positive ways that new experiences might impact a generation.
The same way that popular ideas about Generation X proved to be wrong, I would put money on Millennials turning out to be a positive influence on society. Look at the good things that Millennials have going for them. We are the first truly digitally fluent generation. We grew up as the Internet got huge and have been using computers from a young age. This generation has already given the world things like Facebook, YouTube, Runescape, Mozilla, WordPress, Threadless Tees, and Digg. What do all these have in common? They are all based online. Businesses that want to be on the cutting end of online communication, technology and innovation could learn a lot from hiring Millennials.
The Internet has gotten a bad rap, but all the social media and outlets for self-publication has made us anything but lazy. Here’s a pretty good article that touches on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-entrepreneurial-generation.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper
That’s a great article Jen, I like to count myself among the entrepreneurial element of our generation. You have to admit that we are to known to be lazy, just very independent and we don’t want the same things that our parent’s necessarily wanted.