American Millennials trail the pack

Long time lurker here. I had to create an account to comment on this topic.Speaking as a millennial myself, I do observe many of the things that older folks complain about.The first thing I do in the morning when I wake up to get ready for work is turn on the news and watch/listen to it while I make coffee and breakfast. I like to keep myself informed of recent events. And yet I've found that most of my peers simply don't watch or care about the news at all.Anyone remember the Haiti earthquake that killed tens of thousands? You couldn't go anywhere without hearing people talking about it. And yet, I honest to god ran into a few millennials who had no idea it happened. When I ask my peers why they're not interested in the news, they always say the same thing: it has absolutely nothing to do with them.That's not all. I work at an engineering firm. We would "grade" each other's work to double/triple check each other's work. I've found that more often than not my peers would just do something in a hurry and submit their reports without making sure of the quality. It's annoying to catch the most obvious mistakes. This isn't college anymore, people! You don't do something in a hurry, turn it in, and pray that you got partial credit.I've also observed financial irresponsibility in most of my peers. It's like watching a train wreck happening in slow motion but there is nothing I can do about it. For example, my boyfriend and I recently took his sister and her boyfriend out to dinner. I happen to know that the boyfriend recently lost his car because he couldn't afford the payments. He's currently sleeping at my boyfriend's sister's parents' living room couch. While we were eating, he bragged that he's been saving up to buy some fancy belt from Italy. He showed me on the phone and the price tag was $3600. I didn't even know fashion belts could cost that much I've also seen someone of my age blow through $70k she inherited in a year. She eventually got kicked out of her apartment and had to move back to her mother's place. Her boyfriend left to go to Colorado to find work. He spent his entire first paycheck buying weed and posted it on facebook to brag.I've found myself preferring to converse with older people more than people my own age because at least they know what the hell is going on around them instead of being oblivious to what's going on out there.I can't wait to see what the next generation is like. Ever seen the movie Idiocracy? Sometimes, I feel like that's the direction we're heading.

caffeine (probably an addict anyway) writes:

quote:

---

In all this bewailing of the ignorance of the modern American, I feel the figures are being missed.

​

Average scores on literacy for 16-65 year olds in the US - 270
Average scores on literacy for US Millenials - 274

​

Average scores on numeracy for 16-65 year olds in the US - 253
Average scores on numeracy for US Millenials - 255

​

Average scores on PS-TRE for 16-65 year olds in the US - 277
Average scores on PS-TRE for US Millenials - 284

​

So in the US, on all categories in this test, the stupid and ignorant Millenials did better than their informed elders that you prefer speaking to. The assertions in the article the OP quotes seem to be false.

---

Forgive me, but I did not say they are more ignorant than their elders. In fact, I think... I know that millennials are more educated as a group.What I said was from my personal experience people in my own age group don't seem to care about current events or history.

I saw a news report not too long ago that say youths these days stay home with their parents a lot longer than youths of past generations. This fits in quite well with my personal observation.And it's understandable that youths these days stay at home longer. We just had a really bad recession. But even successful millennials tend to stay at home a lot longer these days.Take a friend of mine, for example. He's an office manager at a medical office and he's staying at home with his parents. Oh yeah, his girl friend also stays there.Or take my case, for example. I'm an engineer and my boyfriend is still in school studying accounting. We just moved out of my parents' house and into our own house just 5 months ago. Yeah, I'm shameless about it

And that's exactly my point.