Millennial Students

When I first began reading this article, it became very clear that I have had conversations regarding the different generations before. I'm not sure that I've ever highlighted much of anything throughout my scholastic years, but this article spoke many truths that I felt were highlight-worthy.

The first point that I highlighted was that members of the Millennial generation, "...Have been socialized by supportive parents to be successful in life." This concept always makes me laugh. I would venture that most of our parents, from an early age, always told us that we can do whatever we want in life. They would tell us that the opportunities are endless, and if we work hard, we can achieve anything. Although that sounds like a great theory, that is not always the reality. As an extreme example, I believe there is no way I could have ever become a professional basketball player. Even though I worked harder than most people on my high school team, there were just certain physical barriers that I could not overcome to be successful beyond high school basketball. In a more realistic setting, most people believe that working hard equates to getting whatever job you want. While working hard definitely increases your chance at success, there are many other variables beyond hard work that will dictate what you do. Later in the article, the author gives us six characteristics of Millennials. The two that help support my idea are that Millennials are protected and sheltered and that Millennials are confident and optimistic about their futures. Parents do very much protect and shelter their children. I find this to be most true in conventionally upper class or rural settings that aren't always exposed to different cultures. By living around one demographic during your childhood, this group of Millennials are even more sheltered from the differences in the world, not only by their parents, but by their limited surroundings. Regarding the confidence in one's future, Millennials often have the false sense of optimism as I mentioned before. I think most Millennials are prone to always having a plan for the future. Even though it might change consistently, there is always a positive plan or idea that they will tell people about. Unfortunately, most of the time these ideas do not come to fruition. When the plan fades out, then they are on to the next plan or idea that sounds feasible at the time but ends up being overly optimistic in reality.

The second point that made me laugh because of previous conversations dealt with the Millennial dependence on technology. First, it was stated that, "...given their access to and use of computers, pagers and cell phones, they have keenly mastered the ability to multitask." My initial thought was, while we might be able to multitask, the more pressing issue is that technology has severely deteriorated our attention span. Between texting, instant messaging, and browsing the internet, we are always going back and forth between activities. Sure enough, two paragraphs later the author mentions how technology has "shortened their collective attention span." Another good point was how the over-reliance on technology has stunted our face-to-face skills. Again, this is so true as most Millennials would rather send an e-mail or text message instead of calling a person or discussing something face-to-face.