Do Millenials Really?

This TIME cover came out last night online and as someone born in the 80s, I had some deep thinking to do.

Cover by TIME Magazine

Those aren’t just unfounded negative stereotypes about 80 million Americans born roughly between 1980 and 2000. They’re backed up by a decade of sociological research. The National Institutes of Health found that for people in their 20s, Narcissistic Personality Disorder is three times as high than the generation that’s 65 or older. In 1992, 80 percent of people under 23 wanted to one day have a job with greater responsibility; ten years later, 60 percent did. Millennials received so many participation trophies growing up that 40 percent of them think they should be promoted every two years – regardless of performance. They’re so hopeful about the future you might think they hadn’t heard of something called the Great Recession.

Source - Josh Sanburn http://nation.time.com/2013/05/09/millennials-the-next-greatest-generation/#ixzz2SrxJZxaV

Even in China, where family history is more important than any individual, the Internet, urbanization and the one-child policy have created a generation as overconfident and self-involved as the Western one. And these aren't just rich-kid problems: poor millennials have even higher rates of narcissism, materialism and technology addiction in their ghetto-fabulous lives.

I couldn't exactly say that the entire article was unfounded --- I had to go through several paragraphs of research and statistics that proved that our generation has indeed become too self-involved. In an attempt at both pseudo humility and proving the article's point, I had to look at myself and realized that I am a very good example of

Me, Me, Me. I've been a victim of too much Instagramming and talking about myself that there are days that I drive myself crazy thinking about myself, what I need, what I want and where I need to be. I had been talking with a blogger I look up to {Hi, F!} and she mentioned to me that she reads my blog now that I don't talk so much about beauty --- and instead, err, well, non-beauty stuff. "I've grown up," I told her. "I've gotten sick of my face plastered all over my monitor, actually." And that is the truth. There was a time that I've gotten so abhorrent towards beauty blogging and vanity that I got into 'inspirational' blogging instead.

And I mean it. But even then, every single day, I find myself plastering my life all over the Internet as I am doing this very minute. I find tapping on my iPad when I'm away from my Mac and I find myself liking my virtual friends more than some people I meet sometimes.

Oh. :s

But in the end, Joel Stein redeems the millennials -- as they often do. And maybe, despite the self-entitlement, the piggybacking on parents, the narcissistic lifestyle, there is hope that even the generations after us will not emerge into a Me, Me, Me, Me one.

So, yes, we have all that data about narcissism and laziness and entitlement. But a generation's greatness isn't determined by data; it's determined by how they react to the challenges that befall them. And, just as important, by how we react to them. Whether you think millennials are the new greatest generation of optimistic entrepreneurs or a group of 80 million people about to implode in a dwarf star of tears when their expectations are unmet depends largely on how you view change. Me, I choose to believe in the children. God knows they do.

What do you think?
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