The Millennials

Why they’re doing so poorly:

Last month, another report came out extending the low scores of Millennials to precisely the anti-civic, pro-social syndrome predicted in The Dumbest Generation. It reports the findings of a survey of young adults on a variety of dispositions and beliefs, conducted by Pew Research and bearing the title “Millennials in Adulthood”. The conclusion is neatly summed up in the subtitle: “Detached from Institutions, Networked with Friends.” Overall, it found, 18-33-year-olds in America are less connected to political parties, churches, local associations, and their own country than are older Americans. They are solidly liberal, but their values seem more derived from social attitudes than from political policies, supporting same-sex marriage and “lead[ing] all generations in the share of out-of-wedlock births.” They favor an “activist government,” understood as maintaining entitlements and benefits, not as a political or economic outlook.

In other words, they judge politics by how it affects them, and we see that personal-only perspective in their social focus. They are much more connected to friends and peers than their elders are, with fully 81 percent of Millennials having Facebook accounts, and the “median friend count is 250”! They “are also distinctive in how they place themselves at the center of self-created digital networks,” for example, posting “selfies” at higher rates.

There you have the equation. More peer stuff means less civic sense. While 75 percent of Baby Boomers and 81 percent of the Silent Generation believe the phrase “A patriotic person” fits them “very well,” only 49 percent of Millennials do. Half of them, that is, have little appreciation of their country and fidelity to its traditions. They don’t much care about civics and politics and history, and they don’t know much about it, either. On the 2010 civics exam of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (the Nation’s Report Card), scores for 12th-graders fell three points from 2006 and one-third of test-takers stated that they hadn’t studied the U.S. Constitution at all during the year.

It’s not their fault. It’s ours.

12 thoughts on “The Millennials”

  1. Frankly, as a late Gen X’er (1979), I’m probably just as “disengaged” as the much-derided “Millenials”, if enrollment in political parties, churches, and local associations is the primary indicator.

    Politics: I work for an apolitical organization and, as such, need to maintain neutrality when it comes to politics at all levels of government, regardless of my views. I keep my finger on the pulse of local and state politics outside of the office through weekly-to-monthly sessions with a group of gentlemen ranging in age from early 30’s to mid 80’s who all share an affinity for cigars. Frankly, cigars are the one constant I’ve found in how to meet interesting people from all walks of life.

    Church: I haven’t identified strongly with a particular church since college. Not sure I need to say much more about that.

    Local associations: I lack the capacity to put up with the somewhat overbearing BS that comes along with most local associations. Any that I might care about have meetings during the work day, which somewhat interferes with my work ethic (and I enjoy my job enough not to seek out excuses to leave during the day). The organizations that meet outside of working hours seems to be solely focused on getting together to drink and talk about how great the organization is, and I find most of the membership to be obnoxious to spend time around, even outside of those organizations, because drinking and talking about how great they are seems to be their sole focus in their daily lives, too (and these aren’t Millenials).

    That said, I don’t take “selfies” and also don’t use Facebook very much. In fact, I just shut down my account a week or two ago because I use it so little.

    I’m actually quite pro-civic in other ways, so I’m beginning to think that maybe I just don’t like people (other than my cigar buddies). That’s a completely different issue than being anti-civic and pro-social.

  2. I have seen this happen a lot. Even in China they call this generation the ‘Princelings’ for much the same reasons. It is a generation that has grown not accustomed to any hardship so they think things just magically happen without any effort and that they are entitled to anything and everything.

    I do not know if more attached to friends is accurate. You cannot measure popularity by the number of Facebook ‘friends’ you have. I notice people from the previous generation actually know a lot more people than mine does. One thing I do know is that with the improvements in telecoms and cheaper air travel a lot of people have started connecting in associations which are more personal interest rather than geographically driven. That is something that, to me, is quite natural since the comms environment changed.

    During WWII and the Cold War when the world was divided into blocks and trade protections were in place nationalism was a lot stronger and so was patriotism. I do not expect people to be highly patriotic in the ‘globalized’ environment we have today.

  3. I know my generation was vastly superior, culminating with the development of MTV, the pinnacle of all human endeavors. I mean you get to watch the bands play as they play the song. On TV. How cool is that?

    1. Music Television was fine until it stopped being about music and started being about crappy reality shows.

    2. Elon is also a Gen Xer. I would say he is doing fine as are a lot of Gen Xers like Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Shuttleworth, etc. So its it not all bad. It remains to be seen what will happen to these Millennial guys.

      Yeah TV was a lot better in the 1980s.

    3. At practice just yesterday our band decided that MTV was the primary culprit as to why music today is so bad. Our reasoning was that with the addition of video presentation the emphasis has shifted away from the music itself to looking good during a performance.

      Or we could just be a bunch of old ugly guys complaining about change.

      1. The very first video played on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star”, and that turned out to be somewhat prophetic. Nowadays, fashion and choreography seem to take precedence over the actual music itself.

        In the olden days, singers sang and musicians played their instruments. Other people would dance to the music. Today people whose primary talent is dancing are also regarded as musical stars.

      2. Or we could just be a bunch of old ugly guys complaining about change.

        I’m left wondering if you mean that specifically about the MTV thing, or in a more general sense. 😉

  4. Once again, I recommend the book “The Fourth Turning” by William Strauss and Neil Howe. They have a very interesting cyclical theory of history and generations. I don’t know that it’s scientific, strictly speaking, but it certainly is thought-provoking.

    I think that people from every generation can profit from reading that book, as it will give insight to one’s own generation, as well as some understanding as to what makes other generations tick.

    Back in the 1960s, some Boomers fought in Vietnam, and when they returned home, were spat upon by other Boomers. Every generation has its share of heroes and villains, without exception.

    I’m a Boomer, and you won’t see me dissing Millennials. Each generation has our own particular crosses to bear.

    1. I’m a Boomer, and you won’t see me dissing Millennials. Each generation has our own particular crosses to bear.

      A high percentage of those people who signed up for the military following 9-11 were Millennials. While they are only a small percentage of all Millennials, they’re enough to show some promise for that generation. Overall, we’re leaving the Millennials a terrible mess as politicians spend them into poverty to buy votes and enrich themselves and political cronies.

    2. I’m not really dissing the Millennials. I’m dissing the corrupt educational system and culture that has helped form them, for which Boomers (like me) are largely responsible.

      1. Sorry, Rand. I understood what you were saying. I didn’t mean to imply that you were dissing the Millennials. I often see people from our generation bashing them, though.

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