麻豆传媒

PEOPLE born between the mid-80s and early 2000s have been called many things: Generation Y, the Net Generation and, more usually, millennials. Now, a new name is growing in popularity: the Burnout Generation.

The argument, laid out in a , is that growing up, millennials were unduly affected by the financial crisis of the late 2000s and pressured by a new wave of intensive parenting. As a result, they are uniquely overambitious, overworked and overwhelmed.

The description rang true to many millennial readers, but also left a lot of people in the previous cohort, Generation X, wondering why no one was paying attention to the difficulties they face. This disparity exposes the looseness with which we talk about generations. So is it even useful to divide people up in this way?

鈥淚f you want to draw a boundary between two historical generations, there needs to be a reason for it,鈥� says Elwood Carlson, a sociologist at Florida State University. Generally, that should be a collective difference between the two groups that can be identified empirically, he says. It isn鈥檛 clear whether 鈥渂urnout鈥� fulfils that criteria, but it might. 鈥淒eciding which differences are important for separating generations is more of an art than a science,鈥� says Carlson.

鈥淒eciding which differences separate generations is more of an art than a science鈥�

The study of took off in the , when sociologist Karl Mannheim posited that youths experiencing major events and rapid social change form more cohesive generations. Merely coexisting isn鈥檛 enough to produce a generational consciousness, he argued.

But in 1997, a satirical playwright and an economic consultant changed the way we think about generations. In their book The Fourth Turning, Neil Howe and William Strauss argued that generations followed a fixed cycle: children are born during either historical highs, awakenings, unravellings or crises, meaning their generation is either idealist, reactive, civic or adaptive.

For example, baby boomers are idealists because they grew up during a post-war high, while Generation X are reactive because, as children born in the mid-1960s to mid-80s, they were raised during a social awakening.

The success of the book cemented the belief that people born in the same period share common traits, behaviours and beliefs, even if they don鈥檛 have a historical event to unite around.

This idea of defined cohorts has led to intergenerational warfare, says Dan Woodman, a sociologist at the University of Melbourne. 鈥淭he generation labels we use are too blunt and simplistic, and are also often used to engage in what I call generation bashing 鈥� 鈥榥arcissistic millennials鈥�, 鈥榮elfish baby boomers鈥�, 鈥榗ynical Gen X鈥�,鈥� he says.

Shifting definitions

These definitions also shift depending on who holds power and authority, says Woodman. Millennials, long painted as spoiled, lazy avocado-eaters in the media, are now in a position to change the narrative. The BuzzFeed article was written by a millennial, for example, as was the one you are currently reading.

Yet Henry Rose Lee, an author and speaker about generations in the workplace, says that while labels can be dangerous, they are also necessary to understand generational differences in attitudes to work.

鈥淵ounger people鈥檚 values are much more about inclusion and diversity, environmental sustainability, and caring and cooperation,鈥� she says. While millennials may seem disloyal to employers, this is just a product of their increased mobility between jobs, which is in turn a result of fewer young people being tied down with mortgages due to the global recession, she says.

New generations are now entering the workforce. 鈥淚n 2017-18 we had about 3 million Generation Z coming into the workforce,鈥� says . These are the post-millennials, the oldest of which are just entering adulthood.

Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University and author of the book iGen, argues that smartphones have made this generation more anxious and depressed than previous ones.

鈥淚 call them iGen as they are the first generation to spend their entire adolescence with smartphones,鈥� says Twenge. 鈥淭his generational shift, like most since the baby boomers, is more defined based on life experiences than historical events.鈥�

鈥淪implistic definitions of generations obscure class, gender and race and thus downplay inequalities鈥�

Her analysis of surveys of teen attitudes and behaviours , but Twenge argues that her conclusions are based on nationally representative averages in the US. 鈥淭here鈥檚 no danger in that unless someone assumes everyone from the same generation is the same 鈥� which I don鈥檛 think anyone would recommend.鈥�

And yet, many of us do make that assumption. Simplistic definitions of generations obscure class, gender and race and thus downplay the inequalities within a generation, says Woodman. Carlson blames this on the commercialisation of generations, with a boom in products that target individual cohorts, such as books about managing millennials at work.

鈥淎wareness of variety within a generation has never been more important than for millennials, who are the most diverse generation that we have seen [in the US] in at least a century,鈥� says Carlson. figures show the generation is 56 per cent white, compared with 68 per cent for older generations.

This diversity has led some to approach generations in a new way. 鈥淭oday generations are defined sociologically rather than biologically,鈥� says Ashley Fell of McCrindle, a marketing research firm based in that coined the term Generation Alpha to describe the youngest current generation 鈥� the children of millennials.

Fell says the pace of change in modern society has made the traditional biological definition of generations, spanning 15 to 20 years, irrelevant. 鈥淐ohorts are changing so quickly in response to new technologies, changing career and study options,鈥� she says.

Label with caution

Some are already defining generations over shorter periods of time, such as the Xennials, a so-called micro-generation between X and millennials, from GOOD magazine. While Fell believes generations are now naturally shorter, Woodman warns that without agreed criteria for what makes a generation, creating micro-generations could be meaningless.

鈥淎 compelling generational account needs to clearly specify the changed social conditions, relative to previous generations, that are significant and will have effects beyond youth,鈥� says Woodman. 鈥淐utting the generations more finely, while useful, doesn鈥檛 get us away from the limits of these labels in general 鈥� and they need to be treated with some scepticism.鈥�

Even if individuals within Generation Alpha are raised on virtual reality and brain implants, there is no guarantee this will produce significant sociological differences. Older generations also adapt to new technologies, arguably making the differences not as stark as they might first seem (see 鈥�Growing up with gadgets鈥�).

Yet Carlson argues that despite the debates, we should still continue to put stock in generational labels. 鈥淚f we don鈥檛 pay attention to our differences, it is fatally easy to misunderstand the fears, the hopes, the prejudices and the general outlook of a generation other than your own,鈥� he says.