Millennials (an epistemology)

@kuwanger, I appreciate your style of debate. I also agree that these stereotypes don't apply to everyone. A trend in a group should not be applied to individuals, but that does not mean that the trend does not exits. Sometimes there can be a benefit to understanding positive and negative trends so we can continue to reproduce the positive and prevent the negatives from happening or worsening.

"But there really hasn't been any specific life events--catastrophes, really--that have meaningfully effected people in the US as a whole or a subgroup in the last 30+ years."

Widespread adoption of internet has had a large effect on the population. And it compounded when everyone got access to the internet from within their pocket.
No generation has been able to so easily communicate with other people in such large groups and at such large distances. The internet has essentially granted us abilities that would previously be considered superhuman. I feel you might have overlooked that, or underplayed its importance.
It wouldn't even be crazy to say that instant access to the internet is more influential to the behavior of our society than 9/11.

All that being said, I can respect your point of view on this, and you raise a good point. (you could arbitrarily adjust the agreed upon length of a generation from to anything between 15-40 years and there would still be people searching for generalizations)

Hey how about this, everyone stops treating millions of people with baseless contempt

"Sometimes there can be a benefit to understanding positive and negative trends so we can continue to reproduce the positive and prevent the negatives from happening or worsening."

I don't disagree with this, but this is not confined to a generation. Further, most trends tend to be cyclical and based upon patterns that are non-generational. In short, my major complaint is correlation is not causation and the plural of anecdotes is not data.

"Widespread adoption of internet has had a large effect on the population. And it compounded when everyone got access to the internet from within their pocket."

I'd at this point note that I don't have a cell phone of any kind. That's mostly by choice because I don't see "instant internet access" as a real necessity, although it definitely can have many useful properties--one not useful property is being "always available". Having said that, I do have family with cell phones and have on occasion asked to look something up while out.

"No generation has been able to so easily communicate with other people in such large groups and at such large distances."

Phones in general did this about 50-100 years before that. And mail in general did this centuries before that. The major changes have been the relative cost and speed have changed along with the amount/type of information. The other point is it's not "no generation" but "everyone past 20xx" just like phone and mail are more technological cutoff points.

Definitely, the internet and smartphones have made an impact. But grandparents not being fluent with a smartphone doesn't mean they don't use them or they don't have a massive impact on their life. There's simply no cutoff age point at which internet (more than smartphones per se) doesn't provide a benefit/impact.

"The internet has essentially granted us abilities that would previously be considered superhuman. I feel you might have overlooked that, or underplayed its importance."

No. Our definition of superhuman has changed over time as technology has progressed. We still portray in films unrealistic depicts of bulletproof vests, as one example. The point then is that progress that's real and impactful is often not the unreal superhuman but the real and daily. I don't mean to underplay this, but technological progression has been literally a centuries long process. This makes it different than cyclical or one-off events. It also makes it society wide, nominally.

"It wouldn't even be crazy to say that instant access to the internet is more influential to the behavior of our society than 9/11."

Of course. 9/11 was one event and as devastating as it was for those involved, I'd argue the wars that followed and the security theater that was created were more influential than 9/11 itself. "9/11" has merely entered into the politician's checklist, like "medicare" or "military spending", on what is acceptable to be elected. For the common person, the influence is the annoyance of the security theater. Daily instant internet, though, is daily instant expectations and demands. To that end, the common fork is more influential than 9/11.

"All that being said, I can respect your point of view on this, and you raise a good point. (you could arbitrarily adjust the agreed upon length of a generation from to anything between 15-40 years and there would still be people searching for generalizations)"

That's general the point. I think if you critically came in without expectations and studied a lot of trends, you could probably overlap them and get various age groups with high correlation. That's not at all what Millennial labeling or most generational labeling is about. It's about "us vs them" and "treating millions of people with baseless contempt" as grey72 notes. And even if you could find certain (possibly overlapping) "generations" with high correlation, it'd only be useful to understand possible motivations and circumstances of history. At the personal level, you're still left with a person.

So GBAtemp nerds asking for help on how to install RXtools are now "millennials".The premise that millennials have high self worth is extremely misleading.I would say more millenials are depressed/have low self worth compared to other times when it wasn't as easy to compare lifestyles.

"So GBAtemp nerds asking for help on how to install RXtools are now "millennials"
They can be, yes.

"I would say more millenials are depressed/have low self worth compared to other times when it wasn't as easy to compare lifestyles."
This is possible, hard to say or prove really.