Our Generation

The Millennial Generation is the generation of people born between 1980 and 2000; they are thought to be lazy, unproductive and selfish. In article ‘Why Millennials Will Save Us All’, the author Joel Stein tells us that more people between 18 and 29 live with their parents than a spouse. Although the average ‘generation X’ member may think that this helps prove that we are unproductive and lazy, they neglect to look at our obstacles. The average price of collage has gone up over 500% since they were our age, and the minimum wage has gone up a measly 150%. In comparison, they paid an average of $10 000 to attend post-secondary education, and we are going to be paying just under $60 000 ($21 000 without inflation) for the same program (forbes.com). Minimum wage was $6.00 and today is just over $10.00 giving us a smaller (relative to the inflation) minimum wage in comparison. Next, this generation is thought to be unproductive. Yet DreamWorks has 2 200 employees under 30 and they have a 96% retention rate.  We are criticized for having lower than average grades, but we are learning much more than our parents ever did. Lastly, we are thought to be selfish or narcissistic. On average we have 85 photos of ourselves and our families in our home. The number of selfies on phones and online sites such as Facebook are often much more. On the contrary, who is to say that our parents would have behaved any differently? Many of them were just as obsessed with celebrities and being cool as we are now. Given the technology they most likely would have behaved similarly with a hope to be ‘found’ on the internet and made famous. Overall, I think that our generation can be lazy, unproductive, and selfish. Personally, I know that I am lazy, I defiantly can be unproductive, and I try not to be selfish. But we are just as or more productive than our parents were. We can compete with corporations, studios, and industries through our handheld devices. I would like to see a ‘generation X’ do that in their teens.