Recently, I found myself explaining the term “Milliennials” to my mom. Millennials seem quite alien to me since I have not embraced the technology that has been at their fingertips pretty much since they were born. I imagine that the way I feel about Milliennials is similar to how people born in the 1920s felt about the new-fangled television that was sure to rot everyone’s brains.
Anyhoo. As my mom and I talked, she noted that she wasn’t sure which generation she belonged to. She thought that she belonged in the generation before the Baby Boomers. Intrigued, I turned to the very technology I like to poo-poo. I searched for names of the different generations on the Internets and discovered that my mom was a part of the Silent Generation, or the Lucky Few. (Through my research, I found that the names of and time periods for generations vary.)
I myself am definitely smack in the middle of Generation X. I like to call it the “MTV Generation” as well, because I remember spending a lot of time parked in front of the TV, watching music videos on MTV.
I found a nifty chart in a Forbes.com article. I was shocked to read the population numbers for the generations. I knew that Baby Boomers were so named because there was a drastic increase in baby production. I didn’t know that the population was 74 million, compared to 33 million in the previous generation! That’s a boom all right. And, wow…my generation is outnumbered by the Millennials by a lot (20 mill). Yikes.
I also found this article about naming the generation after the Millennials. The ideas presented make me shiver: Generation Like, Selfie Generation. For some reason, I think the Swipe Generation has a nice ring to it.
It’s interesting to think about generations—your own, your parents’, your grandparents’—and how they’ve shaped your world view, your economic success, and so on. If you’ve read any good books or articles on this subject, do share. Have you read Tom Brokaw’s book The Greatest Generation?

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