The Selfie Vote (NeW NC Pt IV)

Kristen Soltis Anderson is the author of a book entitled The Selfie Vote. The subtitle provides more information about her purpose: Where Millennials are Leading America (And How Republicans Can Keep Up). She spoke to several misconceptions about the Millennial generation and some of the larger points of her work.

Kristen Soltis Anderson

The Millennial generation is technically defined as those born between 1981 - 1997. This was in fact surprising to me, as this was a large date range that went farther back than I thought - but this makes the millennials those who grew up in the '90s and 2000s, and that makes sense. For more reference, millennials today are between 20 - 36 years old.

One of the more interesting facts about millennials is that they don't necessarily want to identify with their generation: only 40% of those born in those years would identify as a millennial. What I would certainly find interesting is whether or not those born slightly later - 1998 - 2005 or so, would identify as being millennials.

Why is that? Possibly, as Anderson discussed, it is because there are many not-so-nice stereotypes surrounding the Millennial generation. But what she sought to explore in her talk was whether the Millennials are in fact "the worst" or if they just get a bad rap because to a certain extent, a lot of these things are just how young people act?

Three points in particular, in which I make generalizations, be warned:

1. Millennials are a pick and choose generation: pick your songs but not a whole album, pick your political issues and not necessarily a whole party, pick and choose each facet of your identity.

Response: It seems more rare to me to hear of friends who pull strongly for one political party or the other, instead calling themselves "independents" and possibly not voting because no one partied political candidate accurately reflected their views. It is on this subject I would love to do much more polling and have greater conversations, as I feel this might also have diminished or changed as the last of the millennials have entered into not only voting age, but the working world.

2. Millennials might have a shorter attention span, helped along by the rise of certain types of social media. This might affect their quality of life later, but it also might prove helpful in a political sphere because they are easily tired of bureaucracy.

Loose response: This TEDx talk, by Cal Newport, about the effect of social media on attention spans, and The Marshmallow Test, a book on self-control, the impact of self-control levels later in life, and how to improve it in yourself.

3. Millennials are caring. When a group was given a list of words to chose from to describe themselves, or how they wanted to be described, they chose the words caring, intelligent, and hard working.

Response: That's encouraging. The next question would be, if this is the case, why aren't more millennials seen as caring, intelligent, and hard working?

What are your ideas about millennials? If you are in that age range - do you identify as a millennial? Why or why not? Let me know your thoughts!