A Half-Defense of Millennials and the Underestimation of Personal Pieties

          A friend of mine posted a recent article from The Atlantic by an author and psychology professor named Jean Twenge who argues, with some statistics, that millennials aren’t the good-willed and charming hipsters that many (to her seeming frustration) make them to be.

          
          You can read the full story here.

          Twenge starts off the article by illustrating the extreme differences of opinion and statistical interpretation on millennials. She then starts to debunk the positive literature by pointing out that their authors did not compare their findings (only in some cases) with previous generations (but . . . where did the “rise” come from, then?). Twenge uses the next few paragraphs to confidently introduce her studies and an overview of her studies: Millennials are me-centered. Now, I imagine there’s a spectrum between unhealthful selflessness and severe egoism, but not to Twenge. 

          It’s the next paragraph that Twenge, I think, misinterprets and misapplies some data. She concludes, for example, that since there’s, seemingly, little-to-no civic/political engagement by millennials, they must not care about social problems and aren’t the freedom fighters that Generation We claimed. Does she realize that a) Generation We was released during/after the historical 2008 election, and 2) social problems can be combatted outside of civic/political involvement (e.g. the increased volunteering that she keeps downplaying)?

          With a few more paragraphs of interpreting data that, naturally, would land millennials in the middle of the aforementioned spectrum when it comes to environmentalism and charitable employment, Twenge continues to attack the supportive authors of books on millennials and question their approach.

          The penultimate paragraph is where Twenge’s argument is the weakest. She states that the book Millennials Rising is correct about the decline of “teen pregnancy, early sexual intercourse, alcohol abuse and youth crime” in millennials, but she believes those issues are “tangential” in their contribution to society. Seriously? A generation that strives for sexual monogamy, alcoholic sobriety and general lawfulness won’t affect anything at all?   

          Twenge concludes the article by admitting that she has been asked why she has such a “negative” view of young people, but she tries to shift potential ire and blame to the facts and says that understanding the words of millennials (namely, I imagine, the answers on surveys) is how we understand culture. 

          Myself, I’m an older millennial (the type that didn’t grow up with the internet and smartphones) and a product of public education. I’m not going to argue that my generation is a group of Good Samaritans or political freedom fighters about to change the world.

          But, when it comes to evaluating an entire generation, it isn’t as simple as Twenge makes it to be. She attempted to measure intangibles, she seemed to miss other factors and cultural changes between generations (e.g. the impact of technology, mass media and globalization), and she underestimated the surprising cultural impact of so-called personal pieties. I wouldn’t call millennials Generation “Me” or “We.” Or any one-word description.