Question 1

Hi Jeffrey, have social class issues altered at all in the millennial age?

Jeffrey Arnett · Accepted Answer

Yes. Education is more important than ever before in determining the quality of your adult life, as we’ve made a transition over the past 50 years from a manufacturing economy to a knowledge economy. It’s crucial now to get some kind of education or training beyond high school, otherwise, it’s very difficult to make a decent living. So, as a society, we need to make it possible for everyone to get that, otherwise, a lot of people will be left behind.

Question 2

What are some of the ways parents can connect and build a loving and trusting relationship with their millennial children?

Jeffrey Arnett · Accepted Answer

The whole time children are growing up, parents have to adjust to changes with each stage of development. That stays true from adolescence to emerging adulthood. Generally, emerging adults want to make their own decisions, and they want their parents to recognize that they are now adults and need to chart their own way. But there’s a lot of variation, so parents have to respond to the level of contact and involvement their own emerging adult prefers. It’s best for parents and emerging adults to talk about this openly. How much involvement do they each think is optimal now? What should the boundaries be?

Question 3

Why have millennials been called Generation Me?

Jeffrey Arnett · Accepted Answer

I think this comes from a misunderstanding of the social changes that have occurred over the past few decades. Today’s emerging adults are independent for longer than in the past because they wait longer to take on the commitments of marriage and parenthood. During the twenties, most of them are self-focused because they don’t have those obligations to others and they’re working on building an adult life for themselves, in education and work. But that doesn’t mean they’re selfish, even though some people have interpreted it that way. Most of them do enter marriage, parenthood, and other adult obligations to others by their early thirties. And they are actually more involved in social justice issues than their parents were. So, “Generation Me” is a baseless slander.

Question 4

Are generation labels actually useful in research and public discussion? Do we risk separating out generations and misunderstanding and criticising them?

Jeffrey Arnett · Accepted Answer

I have mixed feelings about generational labels. They can be useful as ways of drawing attention to social and economic changes, such as the rise in this generation of social media by calling this generation “digital natives.” Unfortunately, generational labels are often used to stereotype and vilify young people, usually based on either no data or bad data. So, we have to be careful about how we use them and what we base them on. It doesn’t help any young person to be the subject of ugly stereotypes just as they’re entering the adult world.

Question 5

What is the link (if any) between social media use and depression?

Jeffrey Arnett · Accepted Answer

I think that link is complicated and we don’t know much about it yet. We know that young people who say they’re depressed use social media more, and we know that rates of feeling depressed have risen in this generation of young people as social media use has risen. But are they depressed because they’re using social media so much, or are they using social media to relieve their depression by reaching out to people who care about them? It’s probably some of both, but we don’t really know yet. We have to be careful about blaming social media for this and other ills. Clearly, people find a lot of value in their social media use, otherwise, they wouldn’t spend so much time on it.

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