Thom Rainer and Jess Rainer defined five main generations in The Millennials: Connecting to America’s Largest Generation. They define them as followed: the GI Generation (1904-1924), the Silent Generation (1925-1945), the Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation X (1965-1979), and the Millennial Generation (1980-2000). Evolution throughout the generations is inevitable but there are key aspects to each generation that differentiates them from one another. The GI Generation was affected by the Great Depression and WWII, contained some of the most powerful people, and wealth did not depend on education for them. The Silent Generation did not have many high-profile people in business or political positions for a very long time and are known for being in between the causal Boomers and the conservative GIs. Baby Boomers were very influential during their time, viewed as narcissistic with a “my way or the high-way” mentality, and caused the growth of New Age spiritualism and the Self-Help Movement. Lastly, Generation X is known for their drastic decline in births, having poor work ethic, and …show more content…
One issue with determining the characteristics within this generation as that the younger members have lived a different life than the older ones; while the older ones grew up with technology, it was nowhere near as advanced as it was with the younger members. If you were to ask an older member of the Millennial Generation if the younger members were self-absorbed then they may agree because they did not grow up with social media and the technology in the same way. As stated earlier though, with such a large population in this generation it is not easy to put everyone under the same category. The evidence proves that the majority of the Millennial Generation is determined to better the world and they have the self-confidence to do it. As time goes on the Millennials will be the ones to change history in ways previous generations would have never found to be