millenials

Introduction

On March 1, 2018 Michael Dimock, President of the Pew Research Center, shared in an article called “Defining Generations: Where Millennials End and Post-millennials Begin” that the Pew Center would use the year 1996 as the last year of the Millennial Generation. And while there is some disagreement amongst experts in the fields of sociology, psychology, and demographic studies about the dating of this transition between generations, it is very clear that our culture has moved on generationally into a post-Millennial generation and maybe even a second.

Hindsight is 20/20

It is important to note that much generational knowledge is developed in hindsight. While pivotal moments in history (such as the Great Depression of the 1930s or such as the events of 9/11/2001), which help to mark the timing of generations, are generally apparent, the effects of these pivotal moments need to be observed over time in order to determine their impact. It is also important to understand that as we speak of generations we are speaking in terms of sweeping generalizations – more in terms of culture and eras and less in terms of our next door neighbors and days in the week.

Millennials – A Treasured Generation

Many of today’s youth ministry professionals are a part of the Millennial Generation (currently around 18-40 years old), perhaps the most treasured and protected generation of children ever born. According to authors William Strauss and Neil Howe in Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584-2069, the Millennials came of age and to the forefront in 1987 when little 18-month old Jessica McClure of Midland, Tx, was rescued from a backyard well where she had been trapped for nearly 60 hours. The event captured the nation for three days and nights and became expressive of how Millennial children would be treated. The parents of Millennials invented car seats to protect them and developed a whole new type of vehicle (the minivan) to safely ferry them to soccer practice and on vacation. Life revolved around the Millennial childhood, focused more on the childhood “trophy” goals of these treasured children than on the adulthood success and retirement goals of their parents.

But Millennials are also characterized as bright, service-minded, driven achievers. Who have taken the resources and opportunities of a modern, technological, internet age and applied them to the tasks at hand. They see a much larger world and view it as their own, travelling and exploring the globe as part of their educational cycles or “gap years” as they can manage them, and googling their way to places heretofore unknown.

The Transition

While the Pew Center has drawn the line of Millenial conclusion at 1996, there is no clear consensus about that date. No wonder then that I would choose an alternate – the year 2000. Here are the reasons:

1. Well, duh, it was the end of the millenium. Those of us who were around remember all the hoopla about how the world would fall apart. Y2K would cause the world’s computer systems to crash, and we would be left dangling on the end of a technological thread. Of course, it was not a technological apocalypse, but it was definitely the end of something – in my mind, the end of a generation.
2. 9/11/2001 happened. And this tragic event changed how we looked at the world. Coming only two years following the school shooting at Columbine, CO, in April of 1999, 9/11 was as indelibly etched into the American mind as December 7, 1941 (the attack on Pearl Harbor). Sure, we had treasured and protected Millennials with car seats, but the 9/11 attacks graphically displayed a whole new threat for a whole new generation in a way that most in American society had never seen.
3. 2001 was the year of the iPod, the first device in a whole new generation of technology. And while there was some resistance to being “named” using a term associated with a major corporate brand, the term “iGeneration” (a term first coined by social psychologist Jean Twenge) was one of the most popular names emerging from a New York Times poll of post-Millennials.

If this is the case, this year’s class of college freshmen, the Class of 2021, are the last of the Millennials that will enter college. Then in 2019, the iGeneration will begin to join their Millennial cousins on campus.

The iGeneration (or Generation Z)

While the earliest iGen children were 6 when the first smartphones came out in 2007, this generation has been characterized as being “always on” and constantly connected to their peers. One grandmother who responded to the Times’ poll even suggested calling this generation “The Thumbies,” based on the digits they use to communicate most often. We find iGens at restaurants enthralled by iPads and smartphones, replacing televisions as new mobile babysitters of the present age.

Like their predecessors, the iGeneration is highly protected, but the threats to their well-being are perceived to be even more severe, particularly in light of global turmoil, school shootings, internet predators, identity thieves, and the remnants of economic recession. While these things are of great concern to the parents of the iGeneration, they are things that iGens seem to accept as just “part of life.” And as they make their way into adulthood, these iGens will provide more technological expertise to assist their older Millennial cousins who were the early adopters of a rapidly exploding connective technology.

Where Do We Go From Here?

In the thinking of Strauss and Howe, Millennials, much like the G.I. Generation, will lead the world through a pending global crisis which is yet to be determined. This crisis could arise from global terrorism, from the remnants of the nuclear age, from early mismanagement of high technology, from worldwide economic depression, or any number of other global catastrophic events.

The birth years of the iGeneration are coming to a close, and iGens will begin moving into adulthood in 2019 and into a world of ever-increasing high tech gadgetry which few of them have been schooled to make, manage, or maintain.

While it is conjecture at this point, a whole new generational cycle and a new generation with a new vision, perhaps an A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Generation, are just around the corner. (Will their birth year correspond to the first year that autonomous driving cars enter the retail market?) This generation will manage and supervise the evolution of the internet of things and a whole new age of high-tech interconnectivity.

That A.I. Generation could then be followed by a reactive “techno-minimalist” generation which objects to the excesses of reliance upon technology and seeks to find once again what it means to be fully human, seeking to reconnect with one another and with the natural environment around them.

What Difference Does It Make to Your Youth Ministry?

Questions that iGens are asking:

Who can keep me safe?

The March 22, 2018 USA Today newspaper section led with the following top headline: “Shootings a fear that defines a generation.” iGens are feeling more and more threatened in their school settings and, in light of the recent school shooting in Florida, are increasingly prone to take the issue of their safety into their own hands. Youth ministries must take the issue of providing a secure environment very seriously, reassuring iGens that caring adults will provide protection and that God cares for and loves them deeply.

Why can’t my church communicate in the modern ways that I communicate?

Every youth ministry needs a communication plan that lays out how it will communicate with its various constituencies – students, parents, leaders, church members, etc. Different generations communicate differently and only through careful attention will the right information get into the right hands.

When am I supposed to sleep?

Sleep professionals are seeing a growing number of teenagers who are sleep deprived, lured by being constantly in touch with friends at all hours or by binge watching of their favorite media. Ministry professionals will need to help this generation learn personal disciplines and boundaries.

Will there be a job for me?

Like their Millennial cousins, iGens are wondering how they will make a living, not so much because they saw the economy fall apart like the Millenials did, but because they are seeing the high rate of innovation at work, and they are wondering if they will be prepared to keep up with the pace.

I’m communicating all the time, but why don’t I have really close friends?

The iGeneration is becoming aware that there is more to relationships than dashing off a quick text or tweet. They are more engaging than their cocooning GenX parents and grandparents, but because they are so driven, they often don’t make the time to take their relationships to deeper levels.

This question for iGens will become more intense for the next generation as they face a whole new class of “individuals” with whom to interact, the physical expressions of artificial intelligence, giving rise to a whole new redefining of what it means to be in relationship.

Questions the A.I. Generation will be asking:

If my “assistant” can do so much of the work, why should I put forth any effort?

With all this technology to help me, do I really need friends?

Why do I have to GO to school or to an office? Couldn’t I just do school or work at home?

If my car can take the responsibility of transporting me home, why would it matter what I put into my body?

If we keep innovating, can we eventually work ourselves out of working?

When does virtual reality become reality?

Are there any limits to our technology?

Conclusion

It is indeed a brave new world into which iGen adults and their offspring A.I.s are moving, and they will be often caught up in a torrid pace of innovation. How will the church keep up? First, the Church will need to offer what it always has – the life-changing love and grace of God in very real and authentic ways. Second, it will need to innovate itself, offering its best in dynamic new ways to new generations that communicate differently and that struggle with new questions in a rapidly changing world.

It is just around the corner … time to get ready.