I’m a millennial?

[David Horn]

(08-03-2020, 08:20 PM)RadianMay Wrote:

(08-03-2020, 05:14 PM)David Horn Wrote: Generation means different things to different people, and the marker police have really been out in force since technology kicked-in in earnest.  In a way, I understand this, because the entire concept of "shared social experience" seems to have a decreasing shelf life as time passes.  How we all interact is constantly in flux -- especially now that the social environment is often dictated by what aps we use and how we use them.  OK, but does that really create generational boundaries or merely a series of social boundaries separate from the less frenetic economic, political and familial boundaries that constitute life?

If that is the case, wouldn’t that discredit the whole generational theory?

Another possibility is that generational differences only really crystallise after the crisis event, because that is the primary thing that causes people of different ages to experience differently and shape (or traumatise) them for life.

Actually it’s hard to qualify what actually causes people to think that they’re part of a generation, such as the separation between Millennials and Zoomers. Thinking about it more, the differences that come to mind to me between the two generations are due to age alone, not necessarily due to differing generational environments and upbringing.

It’s quite clear that if we use the classical birth years of millennials and “zoomers”, the tail end of the millennial generation (which I am part of) is still in late childhood, while the rest of the millennial are in varying ages of early adulthood, all the way up to mid life. Perhaps it’s hard to tell what the younger millennials will be like later, and we might be more similar to older millennials later.

All good points that need to be tested, and the test is running as we speak.  Both Bob Butler and I share a distrust of using older saeculae too strictly as guides to this one because the Information Age is unprecedented.  That said, we shouldn't ignore them entirely either.  You're part of the solution, whatever it will be -- and rightly so. You'll live your life in the new reality.  We older folks will observe for a while and move on.  So this belongs to you.  Do what you think is best, and take advice with the appropriate skepticism of one with more skin in the game.  Your generation(s) will succeed or not on your efforts.