It was high school when I first heard the word “millennials”. My teacher looked at us and bluntly said, “Millennials will ruin the world.” My self-narcissism and entitlement made me squint at her in utter rejection to her judgment of my generation, yet I somehow agreed with her. Millennials refer to those of us who were born in between the early 1980's and early 2000's. I’ve read and watched plenty of commentaries on the way millennials behave and act and how we’ve gotten to this recent point of connoting our generation negatively. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t really our fault that we are who we are for a multiplicity of reasons. I’ve been drawing on my personal experience in order to legitimize my findings.
Millennials, such as me, are widely known to be entitled and self-interested, which aren’t really bad attributes; however, combining those with laziness and narcissism degenerates the benefits of the former characteristics. There are multiple factors that came into forming these conclusions into my everyday life. My family resides on top of the chart, for they have made most of my realistic wishes come true. I’ve always been told that I should be unique and special and my aspirations and dreams should be big. They, as well, provided everything to their abilities in order to shape my life, yet they failed to mention that aspiring to greatness doesn’t come easy. They’ve provided me with almost all I needed to succeed in life and also be an overall accomplished person. My parents signed me up for activities and frequently met with my teachers and mentors to guarantee that I get perfect grades. Indeed, I worked hard in school to prove my place, but what threw me off was my rivalry classmates who didn’t work as hard but still managed to get as much credit as I did. I was never taught how to pursue things on our own from a young age, many of friends had similar circumstances as well. We all had older adults lined up for our anticipatory need of instruction.
Another factor to the dilemma would be technology. Honestly, just like any other millennial, I can't imagine my life without my phone and my computer. Technology wasn’t much of a problem for previous generations until the expansion and wide spreading of the Internet, which provided those social media outlets that we are constantly blamed for using, such as, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc.. Until very recently, I didn’t realize how addictive technology and social media outlets can be. According to reliable findings, being active on social media outlets is highly addictive, for it releases a dopamine effect that ultimately yet also temporarily makes us happy. Take notice of how often you find yourself sitting and impatiently waiting on that text back, or on that number of likes you want to exceed on Facebook. In addition, social media outlets also began to function as a controlled virtual representation of oneself where one can sensor and filter their image to look and be perceived in a certain way, most often a perfect and well-sculpted image. While social media outlets avail a quick and easy way of making new friends, it also makes those friendships and relationships seem superficial and unfulfilling to many of us. The insufficient and dominant virtual way of human interaction makes it hard to seek human interaction as a relieving mechanism when one is bombarded with stress and challenges. Instead, substances abuse become more appealing to many of us as a coping mechanism. Ultimately, we need to acknowledge our addiction to technology and social media as it can be detrimental to our development.
Many millennials may complain a lot and whine about everything, but one thing in particular is relationships and ‘finding love’. However, it’s much expected from the virtuality that social media has constructed, that our means of looking for partners will not realistically work. We have turned our cheek away from the traditional means of meeting people, in a thorough manner. All we really have to do is polish our Tinder accounts by writing an interesting bio, picking the pictures where we look most attractive, and conveying as little about us as possible. That practice doesn’t only promote us as shelved products, but it also fails at encompassing the true reality of our individual complexities, let alone falling in the dangerous trap of sketchy strangers.
All of the above was our fault. I vividly recall the unsuccessful number of attempts of my mother to limit my use of the internet. This huge and rapid development of technology also took away something from us; our patience. We are known for having absolutely no patience; evident in eating fast food, online shopping, walking around with a 24/7 soundtrack with the latest hits, binge-watching on Netflix, etc... We don’t seem to have any patience left because of technology. Yet, we were raised blind to how fast and easily getting things makes our instant gratification of receiving them fade away, ultimately leaving one feeling empty, unsatisfied, and bored. Satisfaction has become a mystery for many members of our generation because of that and we are definitely not the reason behind that.
It doesn’t end there because our generation is suffering from increased suicidal and accidental substance abuse death rates. Many young people drop out of school or take time off for having mental health issues because of stress and the lack of proper coping mechanism, which has been getting more attention in psychology and psychiatry. It’s not on us and we can’t be blamed for any of it. Many of us weren’t raised to comprehend the difficulties of life and react appropriately, thus shattering and breaking down upon entering the real adult life. Yet, we are abundantly blamed for the mess that we live in.
