Millennials: Identifying, Becoming and Interconnecting the Generation

To understand a generation is to understand events and circumstances its members experience at certain phases in life beginning from childhood, according to generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe, but what happens afterwards? Common generational traits initially develop as a result of social attitudes toward children and child-rearing norms at the time, but does either emotional or intellectual learning experience stop at childhood? Even though this post focuses on generational traits, keep in mind that age helps define a demographic, not an individual’s supposedly unique personality traits. We are after all talking about millions worldwide, each with his or her creative exploration and life experience.

Post dedicated in the loving memories of David Hartanto Widjaja and Emma Bee Bernstein. 

Identifying.

The world is evolving. Much confusion in the world are occuring as old ways try to maintain their grasp on power, and new ones brighten the horizon and edge their way in. The whole result is an incredibly confusing mix of dogmatic conservatism, hedonism and social anarchy—and earth’s children were born, growing up, taking their stand. Today’s leaders constantly reminded to assess the responsibility of passing down legacy of wisdom instead of wars to each nation’s youth, those who are known as Generation Y, Generation Why, Echo Boomers, Trophy Kids, or Millennials.

Millennials are those who born roughly between early 1980s to early 1990s. In United States alone, there are around 76 millions Millennials, making up 30 percent of the country’s population. 30 millions of them are joining USworkforce by 2010 while 200 million are joining workforce in China, in South Korea and India as the first generation to enjoy developed world standards of living, and in Russia, first generation without mature memories of dictatorial rule. Gen Y is one of the most diverse demographics—one out of three Millennials belongs to minority group. Millennials also noted to be characteristically more attuned to technology, internationalism and social interconnectivity. By statistic, Millennials are known to be pluralistic, integrated, tech savvy generation—traits that make them ideally suited to our increasingly demanding, diverse and dispersed global environment.

However, at first, Millennials may not fit perfectly into mainstream society but their own, unless they’ve learned on how to adapt as they age. Having to grow in parallel with the pace of technological and future change, they may find themselves to be discontent, unsatisfied by systems that are lacking creative expression and ritual oriented. They may long to innovate new and better ways, as a result of not responding to authority or any form of discipline based in superficiality or manipulation—without explicitly rebelling against it. This may also due to develop sense of self dependency as their surroundings laid groundwork for it during their lifetime.

Becoming.

How social, cultural and economic trends have been reaching them through certain sense of immediacy have been significantly shaping the generation. From earlier age, they’re exposed to streams of information, from the rise of television, cellular phones technology and Internet age. Like the preceeding generations, Millennials also experience political transitions, to just about any social capital influx affecting their lives, directly or indirectly. It also suggests that they may not fit in with systems which seem as unfulfilling, frustratingly slow and detached from the process of gaining insights itself.

Aided by their digital upbringing, Millennials are predicted to be emphasizing the importance of secularity, yet also the enhancement of spirituality. They will become firm believers of peace, prosperity and productivity. Differences of many kinds will be celebrated and to be inspired from, not to be battled out. Their entreupeneurial ethics concentrates more on both personal and social level rather than statistical revenue; their method centers around process of creativity, scientific insight and artistic imploration. As geographical boundaries are dissapearing, hence collaborative movements among Millennials can happen instantly everywhere, as they are themselves have become the added values of peer-sharing ecosystems.

To Millennials, the line between work and home is ideally flexible and integrated—work can be found in home, home can be found at work. Demands of rewards, flexible work schedules and constant recognition are to be expected to keep healthy ambitions going in structured working environment, or else productivity can be a problem. Don Tapscott from The Guardian (November 8^th 2008 issue) takes note on how such problems happen, “It’s a case of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. (They) arrive at work, eager to use their social networking tools to collaborate and create and contribute to the organisation. However, they are shocked to find technological tools more primitive.”. In addition, “The problem is not just technical. Too many organisations are still stuck in the old unproductive hierarchy, which divides the world into governors and the governed.”.

Tapscott’s statement may apply to the world divided into marketers and consumers as well, the hierarchy that positions the young restrictively only as consumers, hence limiting themselves from evolving. By consuming, Millennials essentially require the choice to create, innovate, and to detach themselves from material overconsumption, a situation often accumulates into social apathy that shuts out the world completely.

Leading their own battles externally and internally, utilizing their way, their framework and their principles, Millennials then are expected to be able to disintegrate the stereotyped, dumbed down characteristics imposed from defensive reaction to traditional misconceptions, to stand firm on their own beliefs without ignorantly opposing virtues from generations before them.

Interconnecting.

Power, by being empowering; beauty, by beautifying; richness, by being enriching–Millennials come in as a verb, not as mere noun. In result, various associating activities are interconnecting with each other into circle of interdependency. For instance, a commercial or advertising campaign targeted at Generation Y may not succeed by only presenting the product without presenting the consumer. Not only presenting the consumer, but also the consumer’s hobby, job, sense of fashion, favorite music or food, slang language, and so forth. For this reason also, over a period of time, the generation is well positioned to address global issues of our time, inclined as they are to seeing the world as a vast resource of connection, knowledge and community.

Fortune deemed Generation Y (May 28^th 2007 issue) as most high maintenance, yet potentially most high performing generation in history because its members are entering the workplace with more information, greater technological skill and higher expectations of themselves and others than prior generations. Time described members of Generation Y (July 5^th 2007 issue) as wanting the kind of life balance where every minute has meaning. Ideallistic causes the generation bring about now or in future time may not be as rebellious as the Xers’ nor as ambitious as the Boomers’, but it is still a significant shift of paradigm on the course to a momentum that we soon shall see.

Every member of every generation represents profound significance in the larger society, if they allow and encourage themselves to, it’s just a matter of finding the assurance and drive to take collective action. It would be too premature to claim today’s youth as passive objects of modernization if they are competent in becoming both active innovators and networkers.  Assesing with geo-political conflicts the world has been facing for the past decade, the presence of Generation Y could bring newfound hope for a better future—an expectation also shared by earlier generations. By sharing the common vision, it would be much easier to align one generational ideology to another instead of expanding the gap, later on to kick off the new era, continuing the process of human civilization.

Understanding such generational “process of becoming” reflects much of the fundamental views of a society, also an unconscious picture of how we view and interact with the world. It draws a line of understanding of one self as a person, as a child, as a parent, as a student, as a teacher and as part of the larger society, even if it takes longer route than usual. In the end, it all comes down to good parenting, good mentoring, supportive and encouraging environment, providing creative outlets, also breaking the chain of prejudice and hatred that limits the society’s dynamic.

Indeed, speaking for the generation is much like saying “I exist.”; however the sentence doesn’t stop at that, it’s “I exist, because you exist.”.

If not, then why are you here?

Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. – Nelson Mandela

• Esai Transformasi Sosial dan Diplomasi, Lampung Post
• Generation expects, The Guardian
• Attracting the twentysomething worker, Fortune
• What Gen Y Really Wants, TIME
• A Day of Reckoning for Gen Y-ers, Newsweek International
• Talking ‘Bout My Generation, The Anthropik Network
• Communicating with Twentysomethings, Business Week
• Generation Y: Too demanding at work?, CNN.com
• More.

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