Frustrated with the Millennials

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People incorrectly label all young people millennials. 16 year olds are not millennials. They are most often refered to as Generation Z or sometimes Generation Net. If you do not or maybe barely remember a time before 9/11, social media, or ubiquitous devices you are not a melennial.

He was a year old (or less) at the time of 9/11. He probably doesn't remember it.

I've heard it said that people born in 1980 to the early 2000s are Millennials.

I don't remember the 1963 Kennedy assassination, though I remember King's and RFK's. I am still a Baby Boomer.

There tends to be a generation-skipping phenomenon when it comes to different generations feeling an affinity for each other. At least I'm certain I've read that somewhere.

I am a Baby Boomer. I feel sympathetic towards Millennials in the sense that I'm inclined to defend their right to arrive at their own world view, possibly because my generation was often stereotyped for failing to accept certain "moral standards" that earlier generations e.g. those who grew up during the Great Depression took on faith.

Both Baby Boomers and Millennials have been accused by other generations of being self-absorbed. I feel that I can understand what Lena Dunham is trying to say via the Hannah Horvath character in Girls, for example.

I came of age in the 70s which I remember as being a similar era to today's in many ways. The 60s and 80s, in contrast, were confident, optimistic decades, at least in the US. President Kennedy decreed that humans would walk on the Moon by the end of the decade, and it happened. President Reagan demanded that the Berlin Wall be torn down, and by the end of the decade, that too happened.

Although the OP is Canadian, I believe the US and Canada share some cultural history and she may have more of a Gen-X perspective, if I may say so.

That would be correct. I was born in 1970 and I grew up in southern Ontario, which is culturally similar to the U.S. Some parts of Canada are not and have their own distinctive identity (the East coast for example.)

I think the Millennials are in their 20s now and I know I am making an unfair generalization. But I'm still vexed.

Fake news, for example, has always been around, what is changing is how it is being accepted by the mainstream of people. If anything, critical thinking is more important than it used to be because inaccurate information is ubiquitous.

It's my impression that older people (i.e. even older than I am) are most vulnerable to fake news, because they don't understand how it comes about. I don't think my millennial children are fooled in the least, although of course they may just be smarter than most millennials .

Social media also offers a much greater cross-generational window and perhaps having the level of insight we have now in to previous generations youths would have shed a very different light on them too. Everyone thinks their gen had it all figured out.

In what way is this a theoretical discussion? Either the Millennials are doing what you say or they aren't. It seems like a factual discussion to me.

I don't think it could be proved either way. I'm not even sure I'm right. It could be that it is just the way I feel, which is why I put it in the old age forum instead of philosophy. I think my main concern is the ubiquity of information and the sometimes unchallenging acceptance of it that is prevalent today.

I am a little confused here how does this sort of legitimate problem relate to millennials.

Because the millennials are the first generation to grow up with the internet.

And how is this problem specific to them.

Maybe I have not understood the course of this debate but it sounds like you are setting an impossible standard for millennials. You say you want them to do critical thinking but your definition of it is so large. Not only do you want them to think in depth but you want them to look in depth into facts and their thinking. That is difficult for anyone to do and honestly not everyone has time for it.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "not having time for it." Critical thinking is something one does all the time.

I'll answer. You described critical thinking as looking at the structure of facts.

All the other parts of critical thinking you described above are elements that appear in discussions on politics.

Last edited by Shahunshah on 02 Jan 2017, 4:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Generation Z
If you grew up or partially remember the 90's your formative years occurred in a era of reletive peace and prosperity, if your school years are all post Columbine and 9/11 your formative years are occuring where lockdowns are part of the school experiece and you are bieng monitered by cameras and your devices.

I do not like the name Generation Z


Generation Jones
I agree "baby boomer" is good name for those born from around 1946 to 1964 in that a literal spike in births occurred in those years. The peak year of births was 1957 a "Generation Jones" year. I also agree that those who were teens in the 70's had a significantly different experience from those that were teens in the 60's. The 60's had a sense of optimism to the point of naivety. The 70's were dominated by Watergate, gas lines and a combination of recession and inflation. I joke the big cultural devide amoung youth in the 60's was betwen straights and the counterculture, in the 70's it was rock vs disco but there is an element of truth to it.

I do not like the term Generation Jones because nobody I knew used the term "Jonesing" and "keeping up with the Joneses" was an expression that referred to adults. I prefer the terms "Vietnam Era boomers" and "Post Counterculture boomers" . Us 70's teens remember at least some of the 60's major events but were to young to be really involved but we as teens were dealing with the after effects.

No, critical thinking is to do with thinking not with facts.

But critical thinking is looking into facts.

Tell me Androbot what element of critical thinking is missing in the scenario I pictured before?