The Wall Street Journal
America’s young generation has had it up to here with millennials.
Freshmen entering college this fall don’t remember 9/11. I’m a senior, and for me it is only the dimmest of memories. We’re a new generation, and we’re not “millennials,” whose birth years fall between 1981 and 1996, according to Pew Research. We’re Generation Z, or “iGen,” as psychologist Jean Twenge has dubbed us. We were born in 1997 and after.
The term “millennial” has become a smear on anyone under 35, a vague indictment of selfish sloth. But iGen-ers aren’t millennials by birth year or behavior—and by lumping us in with them, older generations hold us to a distressingly low standard. We have the potential to do—and be—so much more.
Young as it is, iGen is proving itself smarter than the avocado-toast-and-Instagram stereotype. Studies have found that we’re cautious and practical, more averse to student debt. We do less drinking, take fewer drugs and have less sex than millennials did at our age. With the war on terror and the 2007-09 recession shaping our earliest memories, we’re more realistic than idealistic.
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We work hard, and we care. A 2014 studyfrom the consultancy Sparks & Honey found 72% of high-school students wanted to start a business and nearly a third of those age 16 to 19 volunteered their time. With their plaid-clad hipster phase and chia-seed fetish, millennials have been characterized—not unjustly in many cases—by their whims. Born during more affluent years, they face life more sunnily and perhaps more lackadaisically than iGen.
Hipster millennials, like Baudelaire’s dandy, strive to “create a personal form of originality, within the external limits of social conventions”—to be themselves while fitting in. The product is an odd mix of individualism and dependency: Millennials embrace retail brands, reject religion and live longer with their parents than any previous generation.
My generation is expected to be the same, but worse: frenetic snobs, caught up in the immediacy of social media, headed toward a “WALL-E” dystopia. But we’re already setting ourselves up to do better. We are pursuing meaningful passions. We care about causes and take up political activism. Millennials also did this, but iGen’s practical orientation should lead to a more grounded activism that won’t quickly burn out.
I don’t mean to suggest that iGen-ers are a whole new breed; we have our own problems. Many of us are addicted to screens. Called “digital natives” because smartphones were introduced when we were children, we can sometimes be overwhelmed by the temptations of technology.
The oldest of us are just setting foot into the professional world. Some are even starting families. The worst we could do is let our screens draw us into ourselves. We have the choice, now, to use our technological platforms in moderation to do good, or to become self-absorbed. Calling us millennials, or characterizing us by the worst of our youthful habits, will only encourage the latter.
When the New York Times asked a few months ago what iGen wants to be called, among the most popular responses was “Generation Scapegoat,” because older generations are bound to bash us, and this term might make them pause. Another popular response was similarly jaded: “Don’t call us anything. The whole notion of cohesive generations is nonsense.”
Labels are dangerous, and with something as complex as a generation—defined more fairly by cultural context than the growing pains of its youthful members—they’re probably wrong. Not even mayonnaise-killing millennials are wholly deserving of the grief they’re given.
Whether you call us iGen or Gen Z or Generation Scapegoat, make it a term of hope and encouragement, not disparagement. Hold us to a higher standard, and help us meet it.
Ms. Ault is a senior at Hillsdale College.