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Douglas Quenqua reports in the New York Times that the days of the Baby Boomers are numbered as Millennials are set to overtake them as the United States’ largest living generation "Which is obviously terrifying! #Millennials, with their hippity-hop music and their "Snapchats" and their twerks, overtaking that most noble (and by "noble" we mean "populous") generation!" But there is power in numbers, and the size of the millennial generation will carry some benefits for its members. "They are tired of being stereotyped by boomers, whom they view as ruining the world for them,” says Jeffrey Arnett. “This could allow them to demand more respect than they’ve gotten so far.” Perhaps more important, it will give them “more power in the conversation about where American society should go in particular.”
Part of the probem is in determining demographically just what is a Millennial. While Boomers are traditionally deemed to include anyone born between 1946 and 1960, according to Pew Research "Millennials are defined as those ages 18 to 34 in 2015." In other words, those born between 1981 and 1997. “One of the defining events typically associated with millennials is that they grew up experiencing 9/11,” says Richard Fry. But those born in 1997 “would have been 5 years old when the attacks happened,” not usually an age when global events leave formative impressions. Then there's the Gen Xers, projected to remain the “middle child” of generations – caught between two larger generations of the Millennials and the Boomers. Gen Xers are fewer in number than Millennials because the generational span of Gen X (16 years) is shorter than the Millennials (17 years). Also, the Gen Xers were born during a period when Americans were having fewer children than later decades. "For Xers, there’s one silver lining in all this. From everything we know about them, they’re savvy, skeptical and self-reliant; they’re not into preening or pampering, and they just might not give much of a hoot what others think of them. Or whether others think of them at all."
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Wednesday January 28 2015, @03:11PM
Get over yourselves, millenials. You're no different.
Boomers were also the generation of the peace movement. The first generation that brought down a sitting president for dishonesty and malfeasance in office. The generation that actually stopped a massive overreaching, questionable war through sustained action.
Young people are idealistic and rebellious, and tend to have little patience for existing structures and ways of doing things. They're distrustful of large institutions. They're more willing to overthrow things because they're not invested in them.
Older people (notably those with children of their own) are more protective of their own local families, less OK with change, more concerned about stability. They're more interested in providing for their own families than solving global issues.
The boomers were young once. Then they became old, and stopped doing the same things they did when they were young.
Millenials are young now. Believe it or not, you'll be old some day too, and have a different perspective than you have now. The fact that you want to change the world now is not something that will last forever for you, any more than it did for the Flower Children.
To quote Grandpa Simpson: "I used to be "with it". But then they changed what "it" was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me. It will happen to you."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 29 2015, @01:56AM
Free love, free drugs, rock n roll! fight the power we're going to change the world!
And turned into a worse version of the same ol shit we've always had.