Millennials
Attendees view view smartphones displayed during the Samsung Unpacked product launch event in New York, U.S., on Wednesday, March 29, 2017. Samsung Electronics Co. packed the Galaxy S8 smartphone with a plethora of new features: taller, curved screens, encrypted facial recognition, deeper display colors, system-wide voice control and the ability to turn into a desktop computer.
Photographer: Mark Kauzlarich/BloombergMillennials are lazy and entitled; they’re workaholics. They’re bad at saving; they’re good at saving. They’re gloomy and optimistic. Maybe they get too much press. So who are they? And who cares? You do (so we’re told) if you manage one, or want to sell things to one, or gave birth to one, or are one.
Millennials all over the world are connected through the technology that they grew up with. In the U.S., they are the largest generation, at 89 million. That’s the number you get if you define millennials — and there’s no consensus on this — as people born in 1981 to 2000, so those 17 to 36 years old this year. Their early lives have included both economic expansion and a brutal recession, the Apple revolution, the mayhem of 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Millennials are racially diverse, well-educated and laden with student debt. They aren’t getting married as young as their elders did, and quite a few still live with their parents — although, just like real human beings, they’re also buying their own homes.