Stop blaming Millennials for everything that's wrong with the world

Instant gratification is the latest iteration of the Millennial blame game. Headlines such as “4 Reasons Millennials Crave Instant Gratification”, “Millennials are misled by instant gratification” or “The “I Want It Now” Generation” all point the finger, as it has been since the Me Generation cover of Time, to Millennials as the culprits of the bad behavior that has ruined us all. With Millennials something has, no doubt, gone terribly wrong.

Impulsiveness, impatience, selfishness and antisocial behavior, we are told, are consequence of Millennial's constant crave for gratification without delay. There are (of course there are!) studies that confirm that our ability to delay gratification can have an impact on our success. Yet, while most bloggers and commentators do a great job in hammering the message that instant gratification is bad and we should feel guilty for being so weak, I am still to find a single opinion on how it is that we came to both encourage and later despise instant gratification. What I mean with this is that many articles often talk about the “me, me, me, now, now, now” attitude as if the result of deviant behavior and poor moral choices. Not once have I seen a serious attempt to understand the context (the culture and social norms) that, not only allows, but actually encourages people (both old and young) to choose instant, over delayed gratification, and to do so to the point that it becomes a way of life. Now bear with me, as I explain this further--I am going somewhere with this I swear.

Not once have I seen a serious attempt to understand the the culture and social norms that encourage people to choose instant, over delayed gratification, and to do so to the point that it becomes a way of life.

Imagine, for a second, a 10 year-old arriving at school without any idea about the latest Snapchat lens, without a clue about who the funniest YouTubers are or being unable to manage an array of Whatsapp groups (one for friends, another for teammates, another for family and a another created by the teacher to discuss homework). I believe this poor kid would be utterly lost. Even more so if we consider the fact that this same 10 year old is expected to be able to learn how to use social media “responsibly”, to still be able and willing to do a book report on Tom Sawyer and to have an active after school curriculum, while living up to his or her own social pressures in VRChat or Minecraft.

With this context in mind, why on earth would we expect these overload of information and activities to be handled with zen like patience and a focus on the long rather than the short term? We can’t be serious, can we?

Imagine a 10 year-old today arriving at school without any idea about the latest Snapchat lens, without a clue about who the funniest YouTubers are or being unable to manage an array of Whatsapp groups. I believe this poor kid would be utterly lost.

I use a 10 year-old as an example, but I don’t want to imply that this is an issue for only the cast director of Stranger Things to worry about. This overload of information, this drive to stay busy rather than to focus on actual goals has been the constant for at least a generation; making Millennials the perfect target. But we, Millennials, did not of course choose for this information overload. We didn’t choose to be latchkey kids, to witness gaming and social media addiction and we surely didn't choose to make tweets 280 characters...in a word we didn’t choose to live in a world full of dopamine triggers--as Simon Sinek explained so wonderfully in his “viral” interview.

We are certainly not victims and I will not be taking a turn towards victimhood-ville. My point is the exact opposite: rather than victims, Millennials have acquired and mastered the necessary skills to survive in a world that rewards immediacy and the pursuit of instant gratification over patience and long term goals.

My point is: rather than victims, Millennials have acquired and mastered the necessary skills to survive in a world that rewards immediacy and the pursuit of instant gratification over patience and long term goals

So, while patience, empathy and the perception of delayed gratification as valuable, may all be great habits to acquire, we must also acknowledge that it is extraordinarily difficult to do so. Not only because changing bad habits is difficult, but because we live in a world that constantly rewards the pursuit of instant gratification. Think, for instance, of the crave to be instafamous: where we all know that so-called instagram influencers are handsomely rewarded, through sponsorship deals and celebrity status. And how about the kickstarter initiative to get Kylie Jenner to be the youngest billionaire, because, well, we just need her to surpass Mark Zuckerberg asap, before moving on towards other less important matters like equal pay and the toxic workplace. Or, let's take a big step back and think of pretty much any MTV show of the past 20 years: what would have been of Jackass, the infamous 16 and pregnant or even the Real World, if the short term and instant gratification were not the norm, but rather the exception? And the biggest elephant in the room perhaps: the obsession of CEO's and stockholders (who are seldom Millennials) with quarterly earnings.

It's undeniable that there is some hypocrisy in those who criticize Millennials, but stay silent about the demands that are made on them by a world that constantly asks them to split their attention in many directions and to get things done now. It's exhausting! And the only motivation Millennials have to keep this up, are the dopamine triggers--the instant gratification--that they come across in their daily life.