Saturday, October 24, 2015

The millennial



https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201509/declining-student-resilience-serious-problem-colleges

This articles really hit the points on all my accumulated thoughts and observation on the millennial in the past decade. According to the classification, I myself is considered as those early millennial. My observation is purely subjective or perhaps even a basis view at best. It is by no mean an inference or generalization of the whole millennial population.

The fruit of today is the result of the work that was planted yesterday along with condition and environment that it is exposed to. This is true for the so called crowd or generational characteristic or trend behavior of the millennial. They are the products of our society, of the parents, of the media, of the technologies, of the government policies, of the economics surrounding us.

Each generations coalesce a common personality trait that reflect the good majority of the population of that generations. In turn they affect the sub sequences generation. This generational influence is also best described in the "Forth Turning" by Strauss–Howe. The millennial is raised mostly by generation baby boomers. They are heavily influenced and affected by how generation baby boomer view of child upbringing. Our parents and their peers, which is the society indirectly, contribute major factors to the physiological developments of the millennials.

Tracing back another step, our parents' behavior and the peers is also a direct result in the experience they have during their child and adulthood development. Most baby boomer are born in the 1946 to 1964. They grew up in the 60 and 70s. During that period, the society is at the stage of disorder and seeking a new born identity. They are the also the hippy generation, those that wants to take control and have their voice heard. Protests were wide spread, anti-war and social economic reform was high in the agenda. Crime rate is high, drug uses at peak. Street and city aren't very safe. Abortion law is still being fought out in court. Social upheaval was common.

Due to those experiences, the baby boomers have developed a protective view on society when they gain control. The very first place of control is at home. The first millennial was born in the 80s till 2000s. The parents are super protective over the kids and the environment around them. Stricter laws are passed, child protection, drug crack down,.. All these efforts are to keep their child safe. Starting in the 90s, and 2000s, there are huge drop of crime comparing to the 70s. It was attributed to the increase in law enforcement and tougher crime law. More people are in prison than ever. Challenging that view was Steven Levitt freakonomics. He claimed that crime drop was attributed to Roe vs Wade pasted in the 1973. All the unwanted babies are no longer in the streets to cause trouble.

To be continue.....