What Makes Millennials Tick?
Feb 22nd, 2010 by David Svet
A few young people are finding jobs now. As they enter the workforce I am hearing a lot of confusion about what to make of the millennials. Why do they act this way? My son is a millennial. To understand him it helps to remember his life experiences as the context that forms his worldview. This is a brief look at my son that may help remind you what the world looks like to a millennial:
- For more than half of his life the President of the United States was a Bush.
- His first memory of a political event was Bob Dole losing the presidency to Bill Clinton.
- His first exercise of political freedoms was voting for Barrack Obama for President.
- He has no recollection of the cold war.
- Our nation has been at war for half of his life and now his childhood friends are soldiers.
- He was a 4th grader on September 11, 2001.
- About a month later the iPod was launched.
- He has always had access to a computer.
- There has always been an Internet, wifi and email.
- There have always been cell phones and text messaging.
- Music has always come from the Internet in the form of files.
- Cameras and video have always been digital.
- There have always been video games.
- News comes from the Internet.
- Research is done online.
- Money is a debit card.
- He went inside a bank once.
- Saving and investing have always been done online.
- 40% of his life has been spent in economic recession.
The result is a very tolerant, civic minded, social conservative who gathers and processes information at an astounding pace. He and his friends have vivid imaginations, a rich appreciation for irony, and an extraordinary amount of compassion. But he is fiscally and socially conservative. He is intolerant of rebellion and respects order. He is very adaptable but dislikes uncertainty. To sum it up, he is a product of his times.
When I hear colleagues befuddled by the millennial generation I am surprised. All things considered, millenials strike me as very well adjusted.
What do you think? What else defines a millennial?
Illustration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikekline/ / CC BY 2.0
“But he is fiscally and socially conservative.”
Your second point was that he voted for Obama… Maybe you should be adding confused into your list. Maybe easily manipulated?
It is your job as a father to teach your children right from wrong, and that includes politics/common sense. If the hours of watching MTV persuaded him to vote for Obama because it was the cool thing to do, then you need to knock some sense into him.
I would say that many young people who voted for Obama did so less out of an abundance of social or political beliefs but more because Bush was embarrassing, the butt of too many jokes, and regardless of politics Obama is well spoken, well groomed, and seems a better representative. Party-line political platforms aren’t all that important to this generation, they just want what’s right and good. Right/wrong and politics/common sense are not analogous.
I was also confused by the “Millennials are socially conservative bit.”
Do millennials support gay marriage more or less than previous generations?
I’m not 100% sold on the “socially conservative” comment. I think that’s also influenced by where you grew up, just as much as when you were born in history. For example, I doubt a person is as socially conservative in San Francisco versus Oklahoma.
But still, I think you hit a home run with your analysis of how Gen Y processes information and how technology influences their brand/business selections.
Thanks so much to all of you for your contributions! What a great discussion. I should explain what I meant by socially conservative when it comes to my son, his friends, and all of the kids I’ve worked with. My son and most of his friends seem a little different. My son grew up with a lesbian aunt who is in a committed relationship as well as a gay uncle. Some of the kids in his crew in high school were openly gay. None of them cared in a way that seemed almost asexual to me. However, they are all pretty clear about not approving of sex before marriage. To me, that’s conservative. They are also far more frugal and experienced money managers than anyone I knew when I was their age. They have very conservative views about money. So, they seem very open minded and tolerant, but in a conservative manner. I agree, that doesn’t describe all millennials and location has a lot of impact. Kansas is a very conservative place and it has an impact on the people growing up here.
Millenials also strike me as much more electronic in their communication, interconnected in their lives, and visual/graphical in how they process information. For example, whereas I like to print out some items I read on the web so I can highlight them and process them better a millenial seems more likely to do it all online. I suspect–but can’t prove–they also have shorter attention spans. Agreed, too, with Matt SF about location. In fact, the New York Times once asserted you could tell far more about how a Supreme Court justice would vote by where they grew up than you could by their party affiliation.
A fascinating analysis of what influences have shaped their thinking. Thanks for sharing it.
I think that their free and easy access to information and opinions has also influenced their mindset. Unlike those that grew up indoctrinated with a certain political bias, these kids are able to filter Jon Stewart and Glen Beck and figure out who probably is being more honest in their spin of the news. Others have filters that are clogged and only let through thoughts and ideas that reinforce their pre-determined view of how the world should be.
It is kind of a funny juxtaposition that they are conservative with their wallets but more accepting of more liberal viewpoints. Given the last couple of decades, I think even older generations are shifting toward that mindset.
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