What Makes a Millennial Tick?
A Millennial is someone who was born between 1977 and 1994. Want to know what makes them tick?
Chief Marketer has an interesting article listing some defining characteristics of Millennials in America. They are a generation that has been raised and coddled by the baby-boomer generation. They were taught that they deserve the best, and they believe it. What has emerged are a number of defining habits, trends, and characteristics that define their generation. Consider the following excerpts from the article:
- Personal Creativity. Millennials are expansive and creative people who demand far more from a career than just a job. They feel entitled to high pay and interesting work, and they seek freedom in their schedule. Who says you can’t run a surf shop, DJ, and do graphic design?
- Volunteerism. Giving back to the community is a priority.
- Stress. Even the younger Millennials suffer from a level of stress we typically attribute to adulthood; these are overscheduled, heavily monitored young people. And these kids may well be more medicated than any previous generation.
- Team Players. Highly social, Millennials greatly value time with friends and place great emphasis on working with people they like. They also tend to be very inclusive and proud to be accepting of all ethnicities.
- Authenticism. Millennials hold sacred the freedom to just be who they are. While they pay close attention to fashion, they simultaneously seek to surprise and stand out.
- Technology as Sustenance. Millennials associate high-tech with cool.
- IQ Rules. Millennials admire individuals who are street smart. Wisdom and experience are equivalent to sophistication and stylishness.
- Life Quality. While they embrace a go-go-go lifestyle, they want quality of life and are not willing to sacrifice social time just to get ahead.
- Optimism. Millennials hate Gen X angst; they’re sick of hearing that the world’s gone to pot.
- Conservativism. Millennials are more conservative than their parents. They are stand-up people, not rebellious; they hold the moral center.
They a certainly are an interesting generation. These are the students in today’s youth groups. They are the college and career crowd. Many are beginning to visit children’s ministry again but for their newborns and toddlers. How well does your church understand this generation? Are you equipped to handle their heightened level of expectations? Most importantly, can your ministry provide the spiritual nourishment they need to mature as Christians but also as a generation?
It always fascinates me how a nation as culturally diverse as the United States can continue to produce generations that can fairly accurately be put into a box. Television and movies have largely become the glue that holds it all together. PBS’s Frontline has a great report by Douglas Rushkoff titled The Merchants of Cool (watch :: read) that does an excellent job explaining how marketing and media channels define and redefine cultures such as the Millennials.
For more reading on Millennials, read Church Relevance’s earlier post: The Next Generation
