Complexity in a 140-character World

In an interview that went viral on Facebook a few months ago, author Simon Sinek explained why millennials are often accused of being unfocused, lazy, and most of all, entitled. He cites “failed parenting strategies” and the ubiquity of technology and social media as just a few of the causes.

When I first watched this video, it didn’t occur to me to question Simon. I was distracted by some of his points that seemed accurate, given my experience with fellow millennials. However, when I shared Simon’s talk with my colleagues at The Energy Project, they encouraged me to take a more critical view of what he was saying. Upon further reflection, I found myself becoming increasingly annoyed and frustrated with the discussion overall.

Simon Sinek offers, at best, a simplified explanation to a complex problem. He says that millennials were “dealt a bad hand” and that corporate environments are not helping them to build confidence and learn cooperation skills.

In fact, there seems to be pattern in which every generation, upon beginning to age, highlights the faults and foibles of their era’s youth. Over two thousand years ago, Socrates offered a similar critique: “The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” In an 1843 speech to the House of Commons, Anthony Ashley Cooper called the younger generation “a fearful multitude of untutored savages” whose morals “are tenfold worse than formerly.”

Alas, Simon Sinek is merely a symptom of our enduring need to take a complex landscape and fit it into a box that makes sense for us — a practice that leads us to reduce, oversimplify, and eliminate nuance. So why do we fall into this trap, generation after generation?

First and foremost, we simplify to understand and communicate. We use a word to represent a concept so that we can share that concept with others. Computers are purely rational and logical. They “think” in binary, which allows them to process linear information quickly and accurately. However, as human beings, we are capable of understanding nuance, complexity, and integration. We need to push ourselves to think bigger than our computers because binary solutions blind us to new, innovative ideas.

Just like any other positive quality, simplicity is an important value, but it becomes a liability when we push it too far.

Apple is a perfect example. Revered for its simplicity, the company has risen to the top of the tech industry. However, the strength that brought them where they are doesn’t seem to be the same one that will take them where they need to go. As other companies are improving technical features and building innovative new products, Apple is doubling down on simplicity, and consequently, starting to lose customers.

Simon Sinek gave us an easy, straightforward explanation of what’s wrong with millennials. Apple gives us simple but beautiful products that are easy to use. Every day, we simplify complex ideas about social welfare, religion, border conflicts, and environmental concerns into binary concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, conservative and liberal. There are, of course, those who do real, substantial analysis of these complex issues. However, a world that forces us to share thoughts in 140 characters or less only serves to exacerbate an age-old problem.

The impact of sacrificing this complexity is that it increases the likelihood that the information we find will back up our current beliefs, ultimately making it more difficult to find common ground and easier to vilify the “other.”

We all hear pundits telling us we need to open the conversation up and “start a dialogue,” but in practice, that’s usually the end of the exchange.

To actually begin the conversation, we need to challenge ourselves to push beyond the simplest explanations and solutions. We will only ever be able to find common ground if we try to understand different value systems. That starts with assuming morality and positive intent even from those with whom we vehemently disagree.