English
As an extension of my previous article, I will continue to elaborate on the theme of the Millennium Generation.
Walking together is normally easier for this generation than the previous one, being that, even though they are more individualistic, they are usually more willing to work as a team.
They feel the need to be part of a team because, many times, they come from small families with few or no siblings.
The Millennium generation has grown up with technology. It is common for their rooms to be filled with technological equipment. They grew up in schools and nurseries surrounded by security and fences. They are and/or were children who travelled with mobiles and have internet access. The youth of the MG are individuals who believe in their working potential, significantly dedicating themselves to advancing in their careers and who are always ready to increasingly invest in themselves. They are youth who are highly demanding of themselves, with regard to their appearance, knowledge and values.
Their greatest challenge is integration in the labour market. That greatly scares them, given the high rate of unemployment and the current economic crisis. This lack of professional prospects creates insecurity and anxiety.
These young adults fear not finding a place in the labour market, not being able to maintain that place and therefore, not being able to maintain the lifestyle their parents have afforded them.
The MG is a generation who takes a while to leave their parents’ home, who greatly invests in their career and who has a dream of building a family, but always as a future perspective, without having a very concrete project, similar to what happens with their careers.
On a personal level, they fear the future, being that for them, the current reality is chaotic and violent.
On one hand, they frequently seem rigid with respect to behavioural patterns. Yet, at the other extreme, they are individuals with absolutely no limits, without direction and ethical values.
The MG is a generation who was brought up by parents who lived under great repression from a military dictatorship. These parents – Generation X – were raised by parents that exercised paternal authority with well-established and rigid rules, which were obeyed with the utmost rigour.
Generation X, in their youth, wanted to leave their parents’ home and gain their independence. Contrarily, the youth from the Millennium Generation prefer to enjoy the benefits provided by living in their parents’ home.
This generation is possessive of their rights, more than of their obligations and responsibilities.
At 10 years old, they already make jokes with sexual connotations. Their first sexual encounter occurs at around the age of 16 and one in every ten teenagers does not practise safe sex.
In this generation, private life has no borders because of the prevalence of social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
They form relationships with the world and maintain friendships for years and know all about each other’s lives. They talk to the entire world at the same time Information and communication is so rapid, efficient, brief and accessible to all. Interpersonal contact is easy, but almost always superficial.
Virtual takes on vast dimensions for people of this generation, losing what can be touched and felt, the lasting, personal dimension. The temporal dimension, for the most part, is the here and the now, and immediacy prevails, in detriment to the very distant future.
To be concluded in the next article.