Known for their blend of idealism and entitlement, the millennials were born between 1980 and the 2000’s. Unlike previous generations, the advent of technological advances had a huge impact on this generation's upbringing.
When walking down a chain of stores at the mall, sitting down at a social gathering or even in circumstances that aren't appropriate like school, you see millennials with their heads down, back hunched, and eyes glued to their phones. New advancements such as the iPhone or an iPad have made millennials dependent on an object that has made us infatuated with ourselves. Social media apps like Facebook, twitter, or snapchat, were originally used as a way to connect to one another and are now used as sites to broadcast our own lives, essentially making microblogs of our lives by documenting everything we say or do. It’s almost as if we have to prove ourselves better than others over a social networking site.
Self-promotion is a key concept that needs to be explored. Updating your status, tweeting what you're doing or re-blogging a picture, people are engaging in an online community that gives them a reason to believe that they are coexisting with the outside world. Social media is a “different” type of social where people learn to express who they are through a screen. There have been instances when people like colleagues, teachers or celebrities that have tweeted something to address to a larger public instead of addressing it verbally through face to face interaction, making our generation technologically advanced but reclusive. We hate personal communication so we use social media as our new form of communicating that can disguise our behaviors leading to the withdrawal of human contact. Messages, or notifications on your phone, laptop or whatever one must use to access social media keeps one updated on events that are occurring whether it be within a friend group, a community or around the world. We are all connected through online sources, especially social media. We rely so much on social media it makes us wonder where we would be without it.
