Ever since I can remember, my generation, the so-called Millennials, has been told how special we are. We saw 9/11; we haven’t seen a presidential election without a Clinton or a Bush; we grew up with computers, and social media was created for us. In recent years, we have seen world economies go on multi-year roller coasters and have seen revolutions for freedom take place in countries that were proclaimed unsuitable for democracy. We have seen Americans taking to the streets in the thousands, for the first time in our lives, through the Occupy movements. All of these things that we have lived through are fairly unique.
But are we unique?
Some of my fellow Millennial Values Conference attendees have pondered this same question. Abigail Clauhs does
seem to think that our generation is unique, compared to past generations. But she makes an important distinction, one that I think is very significant. While this generation of young Americans is distinct from past American generations, we are not so distinct from the young people around the world today. Yes, American Millennials uniquely witnessed 9/11 as an attack on our country, and as she points out, have “the 90’s legacy of the Backstreet Boys and Furbies”, but we have many things in common with our compatriots around the world.
Perhaps this unifying thread is the Information Age. Millennials in America grew up seeing the advent of a huge range of technologies, from computers and cell phones to DVR recorders and social media. Our peers in other countries may not have had an identical experience, but that does not mean that they have not been impacted by the Information Age and are not facing the world and its challenges much as we are. As
Brian Goldman pointed out, our generation has an unprecedented level of access to information. Maybe Millennials of other nations don’t have the same access to technology that we do, but this new technology still plays a huge role in the life of the Millennial generation in general. Occupy Wall Street has been showing America what organized, communicative (often young) people can do, but where did the spark for such a movement come from? From Tunisia. From Egypt. From across the world, from places with much less access to technology than we have. These Millennials reached out and woke the world up to their concerns, using technology.
Our generation still has a long way to go. We aren’t going anywhere any time soon. We’re not going to let the world forget that we’re special, we’re connected, and we’re curious.
