The millennials are most often represented as the socialist, technology-obsessed, lazy youth of today. Do we like to go on our phones? Definitely! Do we spend a decent double-digit percent of our lives on Facebook? Probably.
However, it is often forgotten that these characteristics are not just exclusive to our generation; people of a variety of ages have realized that the 5-inch-by-3-inch rectangle in their pockets contains all of the information in the world. With my phone, I can message my cousins halfway across the world, read articles about Krispy Kreme’s reintroduction in Illinois, catch up on Lochtegate (is he going to jail or not?), find recipes, find the nearest McDonald’s when I realize I don’t actually want to cook, follow Chrissy Teigen’s day on her Snapchat story, find the definitions of those obscure “Cards Against Humanity” terms that everyone always forgets no matter how many times you’ve played – and that is just the beginning, because I could go on forever – all in the span of seconds. Frankly, I would be more scared if people weren’t obsessed with their phones.
Apart from the common complaint that we go on our phones and vote liberal, we are often called lazy. I’m not sure where the idea that millennials are lazy came from, as most of my friends are attending college, working a couple jobs to pay off their student loans, contemplating about applying to graduate and medical schools, as well as being actively involved in many extracurriculars, from acapella groups to improv comedy teams. To put this in perspective, according to a study done by New Republic shares that in 1979, a student needed to work 385.5 hours at minimum wage to pay for a year of college tuition. Today, it takes almost 2,300 hours, almost six times as much, to pay for one year of college at minimum wage. If you want to talk about private universities, it would take 7,049 hours to pay for one year of education at Columbia. Still doesn’t seem like a lot? The average American is only awake for about 6,200 hours a year. Among working impossible hours, studying, attending classes, and possibly having a social life, millennial lives are far busier than they seem.
Yet still, the idea that technology has made our lives far easier exists. It’s true that we no longer have to write our papers on typewriters, we have access to Ctrl+Z, and we can use the Internet instead of going to the library and poring through books for information. Without a doubt, technology has made research much simpler. However, we often fail to mention how technology has made life more difficult as well, just in more subtle ways.
Take, for example, Paganini’s 24 Caprices for the Violin. In the early 1800s, they were considered extremely difficult, and typically only virtuosos could master them. However, now I can find an 8-year-old on Youtube playing No. 24 flawlessly from memorization (her name's Mercedes Cheung and she's incredible). Why? It started with a 30-year-old playing them, posting the video on the Internet. Then, a 28-year-old watches it, and the resistance to one-up him causes him to master the Caprices as well. This creates some sort of twisted domino effect and suddenly, the Caprices have gone from incredibly difficult to mediocrely challenging. Technology has caused the world to become much, much smaller, and the competition to become increasingly steeper.
Because of this, millennials are more rushed than ever. Kids around me are publishing in international science journals, composing concertos, actively researching in labs to try to find cures to cancer, starting companies, creating their own apps and websites, and finishing multivariable calculus by the mere age of 17 because waiting until 30 to fulfill your dreams just isn’t an option (and this is not even remotely hypothetical). Each resume is getting more and more impressive, every college's acceptance rate is going down, and it’s becoming increasingly hard to stand out. Suddenly, just being in the school band and doing your homework isn’t enough anymore.
The millennial generation is technologically oriented due to the fact that we grew up with screens in our hands. However, we are also rushing to be perfect, to be the smartest, the most athletic, the most musical. A good night’s sleep is more of a privilege than a priority, and if a student is glued to their computer, chances are they’re probably writing a paper or filling out a scholarship application. So perhaps instead of using words like “lazy” and “bored” to refer to the millennial generation, we should call them restless, driven, and the generation that has faced the most educational competition yet.
