Re-Tweet: The Millennial Meme
The student affairs and higher education Twitter community was buzzing on Wednesday with people sharing the link to the Pew Research Center’s “How Millennial Are You?” quiz. The fourteen question quiz provides a generational result ranging from Millennial [1981+] to Silent [1928-1945]. While results of the quiz were being Tweeted throughout the day, conspicuously absent from the conversation was dialog about what the quiz was actually trying to accomplish.
It is obvious from the questions on the quiz that this is a glorified Internet meme. The results, truly, are meaningless. Many of the traits being assigned to Millennial or Generation X are as much a function of personality as they are generational. Or, more flawed, they are things out of the control of the participant [e.g. the quiz asks about parents’ marital status].
While the site doesn’t portend to be an accurate evaluation, the ensuing conversation was fascinating about how student affairs professional perceive Millennial students. In fact, some seemed insulted to be considered a Millennial, flaunting their Generation X result.
Has it become a status symbol to be identified as a member of one generation rather than another? When did Millennial become a four-letter word, even for those who work in student affairs and higher ed? And, more importantly, have we lost sight that generational identities are indicators of trends in thought patterns, behaviors, and motivation?
Check out the quiz yourself and share your thoughts below.
Tags: millennials, Twitter
This was an interesting quiz to take. I don’t know if I was excited to be part of the Millennial generation or not! I was finding myself justifying an answer – such as “Did you play video games in the past 24 hours?” Well, I did, but it was the Wii Fit. How much did I text over the last 24 hours? I actually went through my phone and looked. There were only 5 personal texts and the remaining 10 were work-related to colleagues and my staff.
But the author makes a good point. Facebook makes (?) us take so many quizzes. Every day it’s a new quiz to determine your real age, your true love’s current mood, or an algorithm to determine your future wedding date. Was this quiz any different?
I did not rank as part of the Millennial Generation, but rather toward the end of the Gen X-ers, with a score of 67. I’m 22 and am slightly opposed to much of the increasingly popular technology, but have taken part with many of the fads.
Further, I’m writing a research paper about the planning of residence halls for the Millennial Generation, as I’m a Resident Advisor and Environmental Planning major and I find the future of residence halls a fascinating topic. I feel that the Millennial Generation is dependent upon technology, which I have seen as an RA and it’s very easy to get caught up in this. I feel that there are great qualities to each of the generations, such as the increasing tendency to be more environmentally aware that I have noticed. The fact that I have taken this survey on the internet indicates just how reliant our society has become on technology.