What Generation is This?

Do not get me wrong, there are many from every generation that stand up and shine, but I just do not see it as much in this new generation currently 12 to 25 years of age.

Artwork from the cover of the book "Generation Me" by Dr. Jean M. Twenge PhD

(SALEM, Ore.) - There was the Baby Boomer generation. Then Generation X. Then Generation Y (because no one was smart enough, or rude enough, to think of a better name) and then Generation Me. I like to think of society today as Generation "WTF?", the generation that cannot tell the difference between 'Need' and 'Want'.

You know the type. In all possibility you ARE the type.

You NEED that new car. You NEED those $400 sneakers. You cannot possibly live without that remodeled kitchen. And on it goes, regardless of your savings (these days, WHAT savings?), regardless of income or job security.

It is the Easy Pay Plan Generation. Spending every cent, and more, that one earns, can borrow or steal. And then everyone sits back so perplexed at the rates of personal bankruptcies, the rates of theft and other 'income' crimes, the death spiralling depression and accompanying suicide rates and shake their collective heads thinking "WTF?".

It seems to be the generation with the shortest sight and shortest attention span ever recorded. Members seem entirely uninterested in their lives even six months down the line much less five, ten or twenty years. They make decisions based only on the here and now, rarely any deeper than six months into the future, and generally focussed on only themselves but sometimes, again with the attention span of a gnat on speed, on an issue of the day chosen by a colored ribbon manufacturer.

It is a generation with both the seemingly most meager work ethic, yet the seemingly highest sense of entitlement. Maybe this is because the most recent generation of parents tried to be their children's buddies instead of their parents while at the same time doing everything for them and trying to wrap their kids in bubblewrap while disinfecting everything that didn't move (and some things that DID move).

In my opinion, such parents do/did their kids no favors in preparing them for the real world.

It is a generation to whom returning home as an adult to live with their parents has lost virtually any social stigma. In fact it appears to be part of the same overdeveloped sense of entitlement mentioned earlier linked to the underdeveloped work ethic.

It is a generation where feelings are more important than fact, and where paranoia is the rule. Theirs is a generation of 'zero tolerance policies' where thought is not involved in the process, and where we have arrived at situations where such ludicrous rules as banning hugs in schools proliferate.

It is a generation seeing warnings aimed at such a low intellectual level such as "Cook before serving" warnings on frozen pizzas.

It is a generation so wrapped up in the bread and circuses of 'reality tv' and schadenfreude (taking joy from the misfortune of others) such that it refuses to see or accept the harms from the world around it and refuses to do anything about it.

I am sure each generation has looked at the generation a few years younger than theirs and seen similar aspect differences, but I do not think ever to this degree or so across the board.

As to what to do about it, I'm afraid I am at a loss other than to stop coddling them, stop enabling this self-destructive narcissism and start holding them to reasonable levels of responsibility for themselves and to the consequences of their actions or inactions.

Do not get me wrong, there are many from every generation that stand up and shine, but I just do not see it as much in this new generation currently 12 to 25 years of age.

I can only hope for the good of the nation that this newest generation does stand up and begin to reverse the trends listed above which have been getting worse in each succeeding generation.