Millennials these days. So entitled, right? If I had a penny for every time I’ve heard something along these lines within the past few years, I’d be able to pay for my college education! Many baby boomers might answer this question with a resounding “yes!,” but how accurate is this claim? Are millennials really a more entitled generation, or have we just adapted to the conveniences of modern technology that some older people might look down on? Have our personalities dwindled down to just swiping a credit card for our Starbucks and texting our friends while we’re in the same room?
Where did the idea of the “entitled millennial” come from, anyway? In an article called “Millennial Entitlement is a Myth” on Salon.com, Drew Foster contacted Paul Harvey, the man who’s research many cite when commenting on the entitlement of our generation. He says: “…I’ve published some studies on workplace entitlement but I’ve never actually looked at generational differences. That’s primarily been a creation of the media – one of those things that’s now been repeated so many times that reporters and other writers assume that there must be an actual study out there somewhere.” This is extremely common in the age of the internet, and I don’t blame anyone who assumed that there was solid evidence behind the told and retold stories of our lazy, ungrateful youth. It really then comes down to anecdotes — millennials tell stories in which they sound entitled and they get shared and shared. These stories along with the ones from older adults are just fuel for the stereotype's fire.
The other word that gets thrown around a lot is “lazy.” Now, I don’t know about everyone, but I’ve never met a harder working person than a student who has just gotten out of school and is desperate for a job. Another stereotype of the millennial is someone who is drowning in student debt, and unfortunately, this isn’t far off the mark. According to research done by the Wall Street Journal in an article titled, “The Alarming Facts About Millennials and Debt,” 81 percent of college graduated millennials have at least one source of long-term debt. They also find that 54 percent of millennials over 30 worry about repaying these debts! Wow! Who is it that said we had it easy?
What about cell phones, then? What about the kids who care more about looking at Instagram and posting a selfie than anything else? Shouldn’t we be concerned that we’re losing touch with each other, and with the world? Well, the short answer is probably not. In his Ted Talk "Txting is Killing Language. JK!!!,” John McWhorter calls texting “a miraculous thing” with “emergent complexity.” He mentions that speechmaking is a way to speak like we write, and texting is a great way that people are able to write the way the average person speaks. In some ways, this way of speaking is like its own language with its own pragmatics and complexities. McWhorter gives examples all the way back to 63 bc of generations complaining about the way the younger generations speak. This has been going on forever! Cave people were probably complaining about how their kids drew little stick men on the walls all the time instead of interacting with people and it was tearing their family apart.
Really, though, far from tearing us apart, the age of the Internet seems to be bringing us together. We know how to use technology, are great multitaskers, care about politics and the world a great deal, and are great communicators. When you’re in constant communication with everyone around you, a person is bound to develop the skills to email, talk, text, and call. Whitehouse.gov reported that millennials are actually more community-minded than their parents’ generation. Apparently, high school seniors today are more likely to say that contributing to society is very important to them. These kids are also more family oriented and have closer relationships to their parents than generation Xers. Who knew, the generation of “special snowflakes” could grow up and actually care more about the world?
So, texting isn’t so bad, millennials don’t really have it as easy as some people think they do, and now we care about other people? We’re just a big, diverse group of people like any other generation, who just happened to grow up in the age of technology. Everyone feels a little bit too entitled sometimes, but the stories of us acting out are the ones that get the media's attention. Maybe, just maybe, “millennial” doesn’t have to be a derogatory term after all.
