There seems to be a proud tradition in our modern age to publicly analyze (and ultimately criticize) the current “whippersnappers.” Millennials, our time has come.
True, worrying (let’s call it that) about what the next round of adults was a pastime long before the advent of the Internet or even the news media, but Facebook, Twitter, et al., have expanded the conversation and it’s time to stop this nonsense.
Call us what you will: narcissistic, lazy, selfish, entitled. The fact of the matter is, you—the ones passing out these generalized labels—created us.
For some, that may be literal, for others we’re still the result of a world you helped form. One way or another, we are the products of a society created by those that came before us. Remember that.
However, we will admit that we do have our short-comings. In fact, while we’re on the subject, here’s a few flaws we’d like to address:
- Spelling does matter. Same goes for editing. Auto-correct is a wonderful and horrible thing. You must claim your dominance over the machine. Grammar is your greatest weapon.
- Traffic does not care that you are posting to Instagram. This goes for cars and pedestrians. Good for you and your incredible collection of photography, but a true artist is aware of her or his surroundings, and does not imperil others to achieve artistic brilliance. Just sayin’ watch where you’re going.
- Be present. Or to put it more simply, put the phone down. I know we’re all guilty of reaching for our phones when we shouldn’t. It’s a reflex for many of us. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing it, but that doesn’t make it any less rude. So to reiterate, be present, you might be surprised to find out that what’s going on around you is just as entertaining as what’s happening on your phone.
Having said that, we’re not all bad.
We have a tremendous capacity to adapt and learn new things. It may be human to not like change, but we’re pretty good at it.
We grew up during one of the busiest periods of technological advancement, and more importantly we actually had access to all of these advancements and the information that came with it.
Truth is—you need us. We may be wasting our lives perfecting the selfie and frittering away our days on Facebook, but we are pretty gosh-darn tech savvy and when our robot overlords claim their dominance over us, you’re going to want us on your side. Same goes for the approaching zombie apocalypse. How are your zombie survival skills?
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TIME: The Me Me Me Generation
…bi-daily smile…
We blame Sesame Street…and NSync
