Several alternative names have been proposed by various people: Generation We, Global Generation, Generation Next, and the Net Generation.
Authors William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote about the Millennials in Generations: The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069 in 1991. In 2000, they released an entire book devoted to them, titled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation. According to Bruce Horovitz writing in USA Today Strauss and Howe are "widely credited with naming the Millennials". Strauss and Howe use 1982 as the Millennials' starting birth year and 2004 as the last birth year.
Jean Twenge, the author of the 2006 book Generation Me, considers Millennials along with younger Gen Xers to be part of a generation called Generation Me. This is based on personality surveys that showed increasing narcissism among Millennials compared to preceding generations when they were teens and in their twenties.[citation needed] She questions the predictions of Strauss & Howe that this generation will come out civic-minded, citing the fact that when the War on Iraq began military enlistments went down instead. Though it should be understood that for Strauss & Howe, civic-minded pertains to a strong sense of community, both global and local. Civic in this sense means cosmopolitan, in direct opposition to nationalism.[citation needed] Twenge attributes confidence and tolerance to the Millennials, as well as a sense of entitlement, narcissism and rejection of social conventions.
William A. Draves and Julie Coates, authors of Nine Shift: Work, Life and Education in the 21st Century, write that Millennials have distinctly different behaviors, values and attitudes from previous generations as a response to the technological and economic implications of the World Wide Web.
Surveys by the University of Michigan's Monitoring the Future study of high school seniors (conducted continuously since 1975) and the American Freshman survey, conducted by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute of entering college students since 1966 showed the proportion of students who said being wealthy was very important to them increased from 45% for Baby Boomers (surveyed between 1966 and 1982) to 70% for Gen X and 75% for Millennials. The percentage who said it was important to keep up to date with political affairs fell, from 50% for Boomers to 39% for Gen X and 35% for Millennials.
Strauss & Howe believe that each generation has common characteristics that give it a specific character, with four basic generational archetypes, repeating in a cycle. According to their theory, they predicted Millennials will become more like the "civic-minded" G.I. generation. Strauss and Howe's research has been influential, but also has critics.
"Developing a meaningful philosophy of life" decreased the most, across generations, from 73% for Boomers to 45% for Millennials. "Becoming involved in programs to clean up the environment" dropped from 33% for Boomers to 21% for Millennials.
Fred Bonner believes that much of the commentary on the Millennial Generation may be partially accurate, but overly general and that many of the traits they describe apply primarily to "white, affluent teenagers who accomplish great things as they grow up in the suburbs, who confront anxiety when applying to super-selective colleges, and who multitask with ease as their helicopter parents hover reassuringly above them." Other socio-economic groups often do not display the same attributes commonly attributed to Generation Y. During class discussions, he has listened to black and Hispanic students describe how some or all of the so-called seven core traits did not apply to them. They often say the "special" trait, in particular, is unrecognizable. "It's not that many diverse parents don't want to treat their kids as special," he says, "but they often don't have the social and cultural capital, the time and resources, to do that."
Millennial characteristics vary by region, depending on social and economic conditions. There's a marked increase in use and familiarity with communication, media, and digital technologies. In most parts of the world its upbringing was marked by an increase in a neoliberal approach to politics and economics; the effects of this environment are disputed.
Generation Y - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia