Millennials: confident yet vulnerable

Posted on: 20 October 2016

New research from Trinity shows how the burden of choice and opportunity weighs heavily on the millennial generation.

Millennials – those born between 1984 and 1993 – are often portrayed as a selfish, entitled bunch. But new research from Trinity College Dublin exposes a different side to the debate.

As a generation, millennials say they feel ‘burdened’ by the amount of opportunities they face. Because of this they often feel entrapped in a ‘race’ to pursue and achieve successful education and careers.

The research is contained in ‘I am a Millennial … What am I?’ by Aisling O’Connor, a masters student in applied social research in Trinity. The focus of the study was to examine how millennials perceive themselves. While a lot has been written about them, especially with regard to the recession, very little research has been conducted in terms of what it really means to be a millennial.

Key findings from ‘I Am a Millennial … What am I?’ are:

• Millennials have a heightened sense of burden regarding the opportunities they have. This can often lead to an emergent feeling of inadequacy. Furthermore this race to embrace so many options sometimes means that opportunities are being taken without reflecting on their suitability or appropriateness.
• Even though millennials use social media to show how ‘competent, interesting and successful’ they are, it is widely accepted that online curations are not true representations of themselves. They feel frustrated that they have succumbed to this need to curate a perfect online image when they know that it is not true.

Dr Catherine Conlon, Assistant Professor in Social Policy who supervised the project commented: “Aisling’s empirical research involving 19 members of what is termed the ‘millennial’ generation, in detailed and extensive one-to-one and group interviews, revealed an interesting double-edged sword constituting their sense of themselves. While participants from across the social spectrum showed they are aware they are very well resourced and privileged compared to previous generations, with that privilege comes an unexpected sense of ‘burden’. Because the version of millennials we meet in popular culture and social media are associated with boundless levels of opportunity to travel, study, flourish and ‘experience’, those living out the everyday reality of being a millennial who are not living up to this image feel they are not realising their full potential.” 

“Some are not ‘doing it all and having it all’ because they do not want that kind of lifestyle while others are not because they cannot afford to travel, get the grades for university, afford the fees or rent for college, get the interview for the job and so on. The bar for ‘lifestyle’ of this group is set very, very high and the burden of getting over it and/or living up to it can leave some young people feeling they are failing themselves.”

Speaking about her research findings, which stemmed from interviews and focus groups, Aisling O’Connor commented: “As a millennial myself I felt that our generation has been getting a lot of attention in the press and academic literature without our opinions being heard as to what we think being a millennial is all about and how it impacts us.”

“What my research shows it that the stress of opportunity and creating perfect images of ourselves online are big issues. ‘Appearing confident, feeling vulnerable’ was how I summarised the current feelings of the millennials I spoke to. This trend of keeping up an appearance of confidence while feeling vulnerable is an important finding, as a continuation of this will surely have an impact on the well-being of my generation and needs to be explored in more depth.” 

Dr Paula Mayock, Course Director of the MSc in Applied Social Research within which Aisling carried out this research, added: “Aisling’s research on millennials is particularly noteworthy since young people in Ireland, as elsewhere, are so frequently stereotyped, misrepresented and also demonised within popular discourse. Her research clearly challenges simplistic depictions of youth experience, highlighting the far more nuanced picture of the lived reality of being young and a so-called millennial.”

Dr Mayock further commented on the opportunities this course provides for interesting and relevant real-world research such as Aisling’s, saying: “The course, which aims to prepare graduates to embark on research careers in academic, public and voluntary spheres, places a strong emphasis on the conduct of research on real world social issues through the use of innovative methodologies. This research is an excellent example of the range of high quality dissertations authored by our students.”