Millennials
It seems anywhere you turn these days someone is complaining about “those darn millennials.” I’m getting tired of hearing about it just because regardless of what anyone says, they’re the wave of the future. They’re the largest buying block since the baby boomers (1945-1965). In the span of thirty-five years these kids are seeing so much more and exposed to such a radically different world than the baby-boomers knew. With technology being at the epicenter of their lives, connecting them to anywhere on the globe, comparing the differences in the generation’s childhoods is like comparing apples to oranges. The Internet is roughly 20 years old, Amazon was barely up and selling books around that time—now they sell anything and everything, it would be nearly impossible to explain to many of today’s youths what life was like without the modern commodities.
To give some perspective, your iPhone can have about 256 gigabytes of data on its hard drive, decades ago you’d be lucky to get 500 megabytes on a device the size of a small vehicle. Imagine that. This is their normal, adapting to innovation after innovation, while those of us from previous generation struggle to comprehend the latest changes, which double every 3-6 months. My kids and many others, especially those born in the late 80’s into the 90’s were excited when we saw cell phones hit the market. These kids are attached to theirs; it’s part of them now. A landline is a foreign concept to them. In many ways, they’re more adaptable, more nimble, and have alacrity in responding to change that some of us older folk just don’t possess.
Heaven forbid you ask one of them to fax something for you; they’ll be looking at you like you just asked them in another language. Then it will take them all of two seconds to search the meaning when ages ago, you’d have to delve through an encyclopedia. In many ways they have efficiency at communication that only they really understand.
When you think about it, those darn millennials have gone through quite a bit in a relatively short amount of time. It’s almost exciting to realize that we have the potential to help guide them in creating their society. We need to get off of our duffs, and make peace with the fact that they are getting ready to inherit the world. Regardless of whether or not we want that, we have a choice. We can keep griping, or we can offer our wisdom and support. With this comes an opportunity to help them develop the future. They’re going to be looking at different types of housing, different types of cars, and different ways of living. Our standard is no longer their normal. As hard as it is to admit, many of our parents made much the same fuss about our generation. Even though the millennials’ generation may have evolved faster, the concept is still sound. People didn’t like or agree with the change, which is a common trait of mankind. Everyone has said as much since the dawn of time, it just seems louder now since everyone has a voice. Again, that’s thanks to the Internet. Seeing information pass in front of your eyes at a nearly unprecedented rate causes people to look at the world a little differently. So instead of getting angry with them, get excited about them and help them change the world in a way that benefits everyone.
