Summary - 'Generation Y'

"The Millennial Generation... covers everyone born from 1981 - 2000." 

- Keeter, Scott, Pew Research Center, 'The Millennials', 2009, http://www.pewresearch.org/2009/12/10/the-millennials/ [accessed 26 June 2013]

"The group is seen as reliant on new media and digital technology with short attention spans. They expect entertaining and fast-paced information and are assumed to be self-centred, demanding, and hard to integrate into teams." 

- Lexicon.ft.com, 'Generation Y Definition from Financial Times Lexicon', http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=generation-Y [accessed 26 June 2013]

"A meta-analysis of 85 samples of American college students shows a systematic increase in scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. The shift in scores means that the average college student now endorses about two more narcissism items than his or her predecessors did in the early 1980s." 

- Twenge, Konrath, Foster, et al., 'Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross-Temporal

Meta-Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory', Journal of Personality, August 2008.

Surveyed 940 GB adults aged 18-24.
"Generally speaking, would you say you are optimistic or pessimistic about the future?"
66% optimistic, 26% pessimistic.
"What is most important to you to achieve in the future?"
To make enough money to be comfortable 30%
To find a job that I enjoy and find worthwhile 28%
"How much influence do you think each of the following have your life?"Parents 82%, Politicians 38%, Religious leaders 12%.
60% NOT PROUD of Britain's political system.
77% could not name a politican they admire; only 4% (the highest) labelled David Cameron as one.
19% felt that no political party best reflects the views of people like them.

- YouGov plc., 'YouGov / The Sun Survey', Survey, June 24 2013, http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/jgdvn3vm4b/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-190613-youth-survey.pdf [accessed 22 June 2013]

“...we are a much more informal and accepting society than we once were” (pg. 18).
“Compared to Boomers... GenMe is twice as likely to agree with the statement There is no single right way to live” (pg. 19).
Students are less likely to recognize the authority of teachers, presuming instead that their perspectives and opinions are on an equal footing with the experts (pg. 29).
“feeling good about yourself is more important than good performance” (pg 56-57). A negative outcome of the overemphasis on self-esteem has been an increase in narcissism (pg 69), in which individuals are “overly focused on themselves and lack empathy for others” pg. 68).
"Our growing tendency to put the self first leads to unparalleled freedom, but it also creates an enormous amount of pressure on us to stand alone. This is the downside of the focus on the self - when we are fiercely independent and self-sufficient, our disappointments loom large because we have nothing else to focus on. But it’s not just us: Generation Me has been taught to expect more out of life at the very time when good jobs and nice houses are increasingly difficult to obtain. All too often the result is crippling anxiety and crushing depression." (pg 109)
“So here’s how it looks: Generation Me has the highest self-esteem of any generation, but also the most depression. We are more free and equal, but also more cynical. We expect to follow our dreams, but are anxious about making that happen. In a recent poll, 53% of high school seniors said that growing up is harder now than it was for their parents” (pg. 212).

- Twenge, Jean, 'Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before', Simon & Schuster, 2006.

"If we're going to understand our culture and how it's changed, we need to listen to what young people say."

- Twenge, Jean, 'Millennials: The Greatest Generation or the Most Narcissistic?', The Atlantic, May 2 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/millennials-the-greatest-generation-or-the-most-narcissistic/256638/ [accessed 24 June 2013]

Generation Y have been "...born digital..." they are "... the first generations to grow up with this new technology. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, videogames, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age."
- Prensky, Mark. "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants". MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5, October 2001.