This is really cool. Simon basically explains the effect of social media and bad parenting on this generation. He describes it as an addiction, something people turn to as a stress-coping mechanism the same way an alcoholic will turn to booze. But the discussion is mainly about how Millennials function in the workplace. [video=youtube;hER0Qp6QJNU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hER0Qp6QJNU[/video]
The problem is the millennials don't know how to do much as individuals for the most part... I remember my 14 year-old little brother like 15 years ago (you know when he was 14) asking me to make him a grilled cheese because he didn't know how, and when I taught him he screwed it up. Look, if we lost power today from and EMP or something the strong majority of them would die because they don't know anything - I mean they wouldn't know what to do... It's funny, when I was a kid and the power went out it was fun and "so what" because we actually played and did things that had nothing to do with tech, now it's a major problem for just about everyone. I also think the immediate access to information makes these kids extremely spoiled, even their parents..... Remember when we had to read books for our information? yeah it was a process - today there is no waiting for anything.
The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. ― Socrates
No. In my humble opinion, generation categories like "Millenials" or "Baby Boomers" are rather arbitrary and mostly used by older people to disparage younger people. I'm saying this as someone who is a few years too old to be a millenial, but about half of the employees at the start-up I work at fall into that category. Guess what, they're motivated workers who want to see this small company succeed. They will work weekends to get the newest prototype working before the next trade show. Flying all around the world to customers with often times ridiculous amounts of luggage, hardly any time to rest between installing and demoing our equipment, sometimes on rather short notice, may result in a well-deserved groan, but the job will get done. Those millenials will also accept slightly lower salaries compared to those offered by big corporations for the opportunity to shape a young company. Is all of this anecdotal evidence? Yes! I'm not saying that you won't find people that are both millenials and self-absorbed, entitled slackers, but those traits are not exclusive to the current flock of adolescents and young adults. That said, it's true that computers combined with the internet have changed how work is done. So many tasks have gotten simpler and faster. Electrical engineers no longer have to browse through their collection of huge tomes filled with datasheets, hand draw all their schematics and final layouts, etch printed circuits board prototypes, and so on. If you're thinking to yourself now that all of this saved time is used to procrastinate on social media, you're sorely mistaken. We're simply churning out more new design iterations than what was even possible in the olden days. Today's world is faster paced. Finally, I have one last remark to complete my friendly rant. Many parents tell their children that they wanted to give them a better life than they had themselves. While some parents may have failed to reach that goal on an individual level, in the grand scheme of things, the many generations before us have generally succeeded in improving our lives. I deeply appreciate that I'm able to reap the benefits of their hard work and accumulated knowledge. In my humble opinion, there's no good reason to believe that we've reached the end of this positive trend now.
I agree to some extent. On the other hand, even among the older generations, there are only a few who excel at hunting with bow and arrow. Some skills have simply gotten less important, while other desirable skills didn't even exist a few decades ago. Every new generation has become more and more reliant on the achievements of previous generations and the work of others. With increased complexity, we cannot avoid more specialization. I like to use this phrase to describe the current situation: "There is no single human being who knows how to manufacture a mobile phone or even knows how it works in detail." I'm totally fine with you calling millenials and me spoiled. Quick access to information is awesome and should not be taken for granted. I cannot see a downside here. All I see is a great opportunity for them to learn more about this rather complicated world we live in.
