Talk:Millennials

"the young"

Many of the pics have subtitles like "scooters are popular among the young" or "youngsters at concerts", stemming from 2000-2010. It's been almost two decades, we're basically middle-aged by now.... time for some updates? Photos of Millennials doing Millennial stuff in the 2020s? Mantelmoewe (talk) 10:18, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Or maybe the images should be kept and the captions updated. Nerd271 (talk) 15:55, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

15-year generation?

I understand many sources say this generation is about 15 years long. However, the article says nothing about Strauss–Howe generational theory. S&H were very clear in previous books that generations are typically 20-25 years long, with a few exceptions such as Silent and Gen X which are smaller. The size of a generation is determined by it's age ie. Boomers are a big generation largely because they lasted for nearly 25 years. Because they were large size they dominated culture. The smaller generations were squeezed out to the margins. This article is saying in effect Millennials are a historically small generation, they only lasted 15 years. It makes no sense. I feel like this article cherry picked sources that support the 15 year age, and avoided reporting sources that give it a longer age, thus bigger size and bigger cultural influence.

What's happened now is every generation is 15 years old. Typically a generation is defined by a daughter -> mother -> grandmother. That's 3 generations. They typically last 20 to 25 years between them. Although these days more like 30 years. So I really do think the generations have gotten messed up, because every commercial interest wants to declare a new generation every couple years, because this is how they sell books, reports, consulting services, advertising, etc..

In any case, our article has no information as to what Strauss–Howe generational theory says is the length of the Millennial generation. Even though they were the first to coin and define it, and are probably the single most influential generation theory writers around. The last I read anything on this topic was a long time ago, but S&H were saying they believed it would end around 2006 or so, and be one of the biggest and most influential generations. Not the smaller shorter less influential generation this article defines. -- GreenC GreenC 17:32, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The Date Range section deals with the different age theories, and mentions Strauss-Howe in that context: "Author Neil Howe, co-creator of the Strauss–Howe generational theory, defines Millennials as being born from 1982 to 2004". The Baby Boomer article defines the boomer generation spanning 1946–1964 (19 years), and that was based on birthrates rather than a traditional interpretation of a "generation". If we go with the Strauss-Howe definition for millenials, that would put Gen X between 1965–1981 (17 years), and millenials 19 years, so the demographic cohort seems to have 18-year iterations give or take a year. The prevailing date range for millenials (1981–1996) does seem to be prematurely curtailed, and appears to contradict its own definition (i.e. the trans-millennial generation) by excluding those born 1997–2000, but as editors we don't have much control over that. I think the article probably does reflect the weighting of views found in reliable sources, and yes it is at odds with a more intuitive understanding of what a generation is. Betty Logan (talk) 18:11, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing out S&H is mentioned. It should have higher placement and explanation, maybe its own section. After all, they invented the idea of a Millennial generation, and wrote entire books about it.

From our article, it looks like the Pew Research Center report from 2019 was influential in establishing the 1996 end date. What is Pew's generation theory? All I could find was this article that is a black box. Summary: we gather data and analyze it. Compare the many books and articles by S&H published over decades, that are extremely in-depth and justify their positions. S&H theory has an internal consistency that goes back a thousand years or more. Pew barely a few generations.

I can see why all of this is problematic for Wikipedia. No doubt there are editors who consider it FRINGE science and the best we can do is report what sources report. Picking Pew is a safe bet in that atmosphere. But PEW has a peculiar notion that every generation is 15-18 years long. This timespan is impossible to justify when looking backwards in time. And pre-setting hard numbers for the length of a generation is also not justifiable. Sometimes they are 15 years. Sometimes closer to 30 years. It's like centuries. Real historians don't periodize history by 100 year segments. They use terms like Long 19th century or Short 20th century because each "century" is defined by characteristics that may or may not be 100 years chronologically. -- GreenC 01:19, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps it is useful to point out that a social generation or a demographic cohort is different from a biological generation? Today, a biological generation is roughly twice as long as a social one, not least because of rapid technological changes, which certainly have an impact on culture and behavior. Jean Twenge explains this in her recent book, Generations. Nerd271 (talk) 12:39, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

New essay

I've written an essay, Wikipedia:Defining generations is hard, which may be of interest to readers of this page. Dan Bloch (talk) 05:44, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Blurred boundaries of the date of birth

In addition to the data from the Pew Research Center, there are also, for example, data from the international American company McKinsey, where millennials Y were born from 1980 to 1994 or McCrindle (1980-1994), So this is all conditional, but in order to avoid disagreements, of all the existing classifications of the theory of generations, it is better to take the earliest date of birth Millennials - 1980 and the earliest end date of births - The year 1994, especially since people born in 1995, they can no longer be called millennials in the classical sense that modern sociologists describe them, but you can already call the very first generation Z, according to many signs, which is confirmed by data from many reputable research centers. So, of all the interpretations that exist today, in my opinion, the birth dates of generation Y from 1980 to 1994 will be the most optimal. Georgii Valentinovich (talk) 18:49, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

The most optimal would be to take the latest start date (1983) and the earliest end date (1994), because people born between those years are the only ones that are undeniably millenials by all definitions. But Wikipedia does not concern itself with what is optimal, the only applicable policy here is WP:DUE, and I think this article is now balanced well with that policy—at least in terms of the date definitions. I would also recommend reading Danbloch's essay above. Betty Logan (talk) 03:27, 11 August 2024 (UTC)