Topic > Millennials: The “Me, Myself, and I” Generation

Millennials always think they have it all figured out… until the day they realize they don’t. Time Magazine's publication of Joel Stein's The Me, Me, Me Generation and Andrea McAlister's article Teaching the Millennial Generation described their thoughts on that dreaded day for millennials when they realized they hadn't yet understood everything. Both articles touch on millennials' technological advancements in school and personal lives, how educational methods are becoming increasingly redundant for more millennial children due to social advancements, and how no amount of millennials' new skills will make up for their growing dependence on close friends. and family. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In Andrea McAlister's article Teaching the Millennial Generation, she explains how teenagers are becoming more adept at multitasking and their ability to learn new things, how current educational systems/methods are becoming obsolete, and how children are able to do more at the same time but learn less in the long term. This article begins by expressing McAlister's thoughts on how current education systems are obsolete compared to society's progress. She brings up the fact that most people in today's generations "have never known a life without the Internet"; therefore, using older teaching methods and denying the Internet is not as beneficial in today's educational environments. Today's teaching styles continue to be overtaken by the technological and cultural advances of modern societies, which in turn create a block in children's ability to learn as material is taught to them in foreign and incomprehensible ways. McAlister also highlights the fact that even though children may not retain information, their brains are still processing it. They may also have difficulty retaining information due to the use of secondary stimulants in their work ethic. He uses the phrase "Several studies measuring the effectiveness of multitasking and learning have shown that learning suffers when trying to process several layers of unrelated information at the same time" to demonstrate that having a secondary stimulant in the background is actually affecting the their level. understand and retain information. These children, according to McAlister, "...have the ability to text, talk, do homework, and listen to music, but this does not mean that they efficiently retain the necessary information" because these secondary stimulants create an additional layer of information that their brain has to process. Children of the millennial generations have become truly profoundly adept at multitasking and no longer do homework without some form of external stimulation. This will create the disadvantage of not being able to retain the newly learned information, which in turn will mean that they will need that external stimulus to attempt to remember the information they need. However, none of this information will stop them from trying to do it all and balancing their full schedule of classes, sports, recreational activities, and listening to music while doing it all. In Joel Stein's article The Me, Me, Me Generation, published by Times Magazine, he discusses how millennials are missing out on personal progress, how dependent they are becoming, and how much people around them are noticing these changes between generations of millennials and baby boomers. The biggest change people are noticing is baby boomers.