Why Gen Y can be the next Greatest Generation

And why older generations’ mistrust of us is nothing out of the ordinary

The term “Greatest Generation” was coined by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the men and women who endured the Great Depression and World War II and went on to build modern America. Brokaw argues that their achievements were due to profound discipline and emphasis on personal responsibility, going so far as to call them “the greatest generation any society has ever produced”. I think we are at a unique place in history that gives Generation Y, my generation, the potential to become the next Greatest Generation.

Despite my lofty predictions, Generation Y — also known as the Millennial Generation — doesn't seem to be poised to receive such admiration from posterity. Indeed, even in present day we’re catching a lot of flak. Author Jean Twenge dubbed us “Generation Me” based on studies showing higher narcissism among this generation than those preceding us. In a survey run by CareerBuilder.com, over 85% of hiring managers and HR executives said that relative to older workers, Gen Yers display a stronger sense of entitlement. We've also been nicknamed “the Peter Pan generation” due to our perceived avoidance of rites of passage such as marriage and moving out of our parents’ homes to buy our own, leaving us “in a state of emerging adulthood”.

One counterargument states that in its early days every generation is self-centered and misunderstood by older generations. Just as young Baby Boomers once shocked parents by eschewing their prudish values and embracing the counterculture, Gen Yers are ruffling parents’ feathers by forming their own world views. Supporters of this point of view say that our parents and grandparents forget they weren't perfect, either. Namely, the Greatest Generation endured through the Great Depression and WWII but erred greatly in its treatment of women and minorities. Baby Boomers oversaw the great economic boom of the late 20th century, but presided over historically high divorce rates and contributed greatly to causing the 2007 Financial Crisis with reckless spending habits.

Another defense of Gen Yers rests on Maslowe’s hierarchy of needs, which argues that human seek first to satisfy fundamental wants, such as the need for food and warmth, then move to fulfill increasingly higher needs. As recently argued, Baby Boomers achieved prosperous and stable careers; as a result, their Gen Y children grew up with fewer financial wants, and so are seeking satisfaction of a higher need — purpose and fulfillment. The argument is that the desire for more is the catalyst of human progress, and though the focus of Gen Yers’ desire is different than previous generations’, the depth of our drive is no less.

However, I want to move beyond acknowledging the validity of both sides of the debate. I want to explain why this tug-of-war misses the fact that Gen Yers’ passion and access to technology uniquely positions them to become the next Greatest Generation.

Idealism and Passion

I respect the Great Generation’s accomplishments, and put some stock in the expression “necessity is the mother of invention”. However, I think passion can yield even better results than necessity. Where some critics of Gen Y see laziness, I see highly idealistic young people who won’t accept the stodgy jobs their parents tolerated, and instead are looking for, as one Gen Yer put it, “work that gives me purpose, that fuels me. That makes me okay with sleeping only 3 hours a night and losing weight because I don’t have time to eat.”

To support that idea, many young people point to Mark Zuckerberg, our country’s “first millennial CEO”, who is well-known for dropping out of college to follow his passions, for wearing hoodies to meetings on Wall Street, and for a net worth of $9.4 billion. Others proclaim that our generation’s enthusiasm and social media savviness was responsible for the election of Barack “Yes We Can” Obama to the Oval Office; the nation’s first African-American president, Obama won by a larger margin among young voters than any previous president.

Moreover, when thinking about ignoring others’ expectations to pursue your passions, I am reminded of many rebellious yet successful innovators, from Da Vinci (“Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art”) to Jobs (“When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is… That’s a very limited life… everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. You can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things.”)

As evidenced by people like Da Vinci and Jobs, passion and idealism are powerful forces, and Gen Yers have both in spades.

The power of technology

Having grown up in the midst of the Information Age, Gen Yers have powerful technology at their disposal which they can use to push new boundaries or to access information at a scale unprecedented before in human history. As pointed out in a recent Forrester report, “[Older consumers] tend to use the new technology to do old things. Younger consumers use the new technology to do new things.”

Though admittedly large swathes of the internet are awash in cat memes and uninformed comments sections, it is also bursting with things of real value. We can use it to pull up Wikipedia articles or news stories from countless different sources, and to share out informative content via social media with a few clicks of a mouse. We can also watch TEDx talks of experts’ opinions and new ideas, or learn in-depth about dozens of topics on Khan Academy. While our parents relied primarily on formal education, we can supplement our in-class knowledge with thousands of different sources of information.

Even more excitingly, we can teach ourselves to code and how stuff works so we can do virtually anything. In recent years, among countless other things, easily-accessible technology has empowered volunteer computing projects that discovered the largest known prime number or sought cures for diseases, and has enabled social networks that helped facilitate movements as powerful as the Arab Spring.

Archimedes famously said “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” Technology is a lever that allows us to achieve more per unit of effort, and never has the lever been as powerful as it is today.

In sum, the notion of taking previous generations’ advice with a grain of salt assumes that one does, in fact, take their advice. We Gen Yers should recognize that we have strengths other generations may not see, but should also realize that the generations before us were renowned for their patience, hard work, and pragmatism. If we embrace these values and apply them to our strengths — ensure we turn idealism into active passion, ensure we fully leverage the technology at our disposal — we can stand on the shoulders of giants and reach higher than any generation before us.