As an avid Twitter user, I stumble upon a great deal of trending hashtag topics throughout the day.
The other day as I was laughing at the daily memes and tweets about how early it is, I noticed a particular hashtag that caught my eye.
It was #HowToConfuseAMillennial, and it was exactly what you would expect from that hashtag.
A bunch of Baby Boomers and Generation X complaining on Millennials’ incredible dependence on technology (as if they aren’t already typing out their grievances on a technological tool themselves).
Some tweets I found interesting were things such as
“Call instead of text #HowToConfuseAMillennial”
“Talk to them #HowToConfuseAMillennial”
“Turn off all the WiFi #HowToConfuseAMillenial”
Now, there are some people who are going to reply back that millennials should stop being so sensitive and learn to take a joke.
However these “jokes” are affecting how seriously the older generations treat the new wave of young people ready to change the world. And that’s a big deal.
Baby Boomers and Generation X members are currently making the laws and hiring the new interns and this kind of weird witch-hunt against all of technology slows down progress in terms of not only technological advancement but social progress as well.
Some retorts from millennials I saw perfectly encapsulated the feelings I had towards this issue and hashtag such as:
“#HowToConfuseAMillennial tell us we need a college education to be successful and then make it impossible to get without going into immense debt”
“#HowToConfusedAMillennial Destroy the housing market. Replace grad jobs with unpaid internships. Tell them to buy a house.”
“#HowToConfuseAMillennial Drive up the cost of housing, college, and health care, and then call us lazy when we aren’t as successful as you”
The point of this article is not to point fingers at the older generation for everything. It’s to illustrate that we aren’t all that different, and that someday Millennials will be the ones ranting off about how different and hard it was for us in this time.
It’s all very subjective, and it’s natural to feel out of place as you get older and the younger generation starts looking smart and passionate because you feel sort of replaced as the bright-eyed adolescent you used to be.
Without the technological advances we have today, there would be more people dying on the streets. There would be less of a transfer of ideas around the world at the click of a button. There would be less FaceTimes with loved ones who are far away.
Think of the amount of people with social anxiety that now are able to connect with others like themselves through the Internet.
The amount of LGBTQ folks who haven’t come out to their family are now able to ask for advice without fear of being ousted accidentally. The amount of people with depression and suicidal thoughts that are saved by suicide hotlines with the age of technology is worth noting.
As I was watching a Netflix original TV series titled “The Get Down,” a poor but aspirational and witty adolescent from the Bronx states to the older generation “Young people aren’t the problem. We are the solution.”
That stood out to me as a powerful statement. If you are raising your kids right, you want them to have a better life. You want them to be smarter, challenge ideas, make a change in the world, and be their own unique person without the same rigid lines older folks were given growing up.
Everyday I appreciate the hard work and integrity of my parents and grandparents before me. However times are changing, and that is an excellent sign of progress.
I hope the generation after me is even more passionate about making the world a better place, even if their sharp wit and new ideas scare me.
I’d rather have that than complacency.