There is a particular way to refer to those who were born between the beginning of the 80's and the 2000: The Y Generation or the "Millennials". This specific group has been object of several studies by marketing experts because of its singularities, but it seems that nobody has been able to understand us.
I was born in 1985, so I'm part of this demographic group and also for me it is not an easy task to codify the ways we react to the environment, what we think and what we like to do. So, now that I decided to return to my abandoned blog (sorry for staying apart for so long) I thought the best way to do it was making a superficial research and writing an article about the common points that define us as members of the Y Generation.
Here are the five things that you should pay attention to in order to identify a Millennial:
1. We are surrounded by uncertainty. A "millennial" is aware of the fact that having a degree, a decent job and a salary are important achievements in life, but they are not a guarantee for the future. For older generations getting a diploma was a guarantee of success. For us, having a bachelor degree and 1 or 2 Masters' degrees is just a way to-probably- obtaining a job that won't cover our basic needs and surely won't allow us to get our financial freedom. With love is the same. It doesn't matter if you have a girlfriend/boyfriend and you have been together for a long time- let's say five years :). A "millennial" knows that there is always the risk of losing that person because she/he gets tired of us or she/he finds someone else that satisfies better her/his needs. Many "millennials" are the daughters and sons of divorced parents, so we know that even marriage is not forever and we just live in the present.
2. We live in a connected world. Technology has been part of our childhood. We can't imagine our lives without a computer, a printer, a smartphone and other devices that have contributed to accelerate the speed of today's world. This has made everything disposable. Things that happened two weeks ago are outdated. Nothing is indispensable anymore, except being connected 24/7. But what about the quality of this connection with other human beings? Don't ask a "millennial" to call you back, we "text" or "skype". Don't ask a "millennial" to go to a library, we will probably choose to "google" what we are looking for.
3. We don't trust in anybody. Politicians have failed and they have shown that they only care about themselves. Our parents and teachers have the best intentions but they have lost the orientation in a world they don't own anymore. Socialism and capitalism are just empty words in a world where there are only democracies that resemble dictatorships and dictatorships that are results of electoral processes. So, basically we live in a new world and we don't have the tools to deal with it because everything that used to work in the past is not useful anymore. That's why we are often seen as an independent generation that don't ask for advice or follow other's rules. We care about the things we like and we want to taste them because we only have today.
4. We are angry and frustrated. Since we don't know how to get the same things our parents got applying the same methods, we are constantly looking for answers but nobody is there to teach us. Some people say that happiness is made of reality-expectations.Well, coming after the X generation, that was capable of achieving extraordinary things and living the "American dream", for us it is very complicated to fill those expectations. We compare ourselves to our parents and what they were doing at their 20's. There is still a long way for us.
5. We are flexible and we want to truly change things. Our disappointment about the current world's situation is not paralyzing us. We think we have the power to change certain things, but we have to do it together. We get involved in social causes very easily and to do so, we need flexible working hours. We are motivated for goals and achievements. The sole idea of having to be sit in a chair for 8 hours bores us.
If you want to explore a bit more about this phenomenon, I invite you to read my previous article "Our Time Is Now": the story of my generation
