Tristan Marshall

11/05/2015
EWRT 1A
Ruth Trimble

Cause and Effects Essay

When my wife and I were a little younger and renting our second apartment we
were standing in the living room one day having a conversation with the owners. They
were in their sixties, and they were telling us about how their whole generation had
made the mistake of trying to give their kids everything they wanted. Now, as if through
the looking glass, they felt that despite their best intentions their childrens values had
still turned out a bit backwards compared to theirs. Fast-forward to a more recent
conversation with, 27-year-old dental hygienist, Linh Than and she sees the same
causal relationship between the parents of the last generation and the actions of their
children. She differs in her belief, however, that the rapidly evolving technology has
played an even more influential role in cultivating the culture of the Millennial generation
than their parents have. In this example, we have an instance of a late Baby Boomer
and a mid Millennial half in agreement about the causes that have affected the attitudes
of young adults at the present time. But what are these effects of advancing technology
that have opened such a gap between demographic cohorts and why are the
generations preceding the Millennials so contemptuous of them?

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Best-selling author Don Tapscott believes that technology and especially the
Internet have had the biggest influence on current generation of young adults. In an
interview with Aliah D. Wright he submits that Millennials, whom he dubs the "Net
Generation" and calls "the smartest generation ever", will have a sort of revolutionary
effect on the business world holding companies to a higher standard and forcing them to
overhaul the more tradition HR model (Wright 107). Linh also believes that technology
plays a major role in Millennials and their "re shaping" of the workplace although her
position is a bit more tempered and less optimistic about the results:

Technology has created many opportunities to make a better

world. It helps us get things done. It helps us stay connected.
And it allows us to learn and be informed in such a way that
is unprecedented in history. We have the entire wealth of
human knowledge at our fingertips. It's no wonder we know
more about the world than our parents and grandparents did
at this age. (Than)

But there is something else that Linh sites technology as having created lot of:
convenience. It is true that technology has taken us from a button press to a
touchscreen finger swipe in less than 20 years and the days of having to go out and buy
music or a movie are long gone. About the dark side of growing up in the Age of Apple
Linh states unequivocally, "technology makes us lazy" (Than). She sees the comfort

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and convenience technology provides in stark contrast to the "old days" of analog and
believes that in effect "it is inevitable for Millennials to posses character traits resulting
from lots of convenience" (Than).

With technology creating a cultural revolution of its own it is inevitable that the
effects will go far to redefine the workplace. Growing up with so much easily accessible
information "at their fingertips" has resulted in a generation that wants to be "in the
know" about everything including the company they work for. The openness and
freedom with which digital technology has allowed us to view the world has cultivated a
generation that demands transparency and "insists on integrity" in the workplace (Wright
107). Not only that, but today's young workers want to be a part of something. They're
not as interested in working on an assembly line or being boxed in a cubicle as a
nameless, faceless cog in the machine. Linh says:

These days young workers are more creative and innovative.

They want to know what the company stands for, and they
want to be constituents going forward. They don't want to be
clock punchers or wage slaves. They want to be stimulated.
They don't want their home life and work life to be so
completely separated as their parents did, and they don't
want to be kept in the dark. They want to be kept in the loop.
(Than)

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These are but some of the factors that both Tapscott and Than believe should
make us "enormously hopeful" about Net Geners in the future but there is much
resistance from employers of the present whom, ironically, tend to take the approach
typical of older generation parents towards their children's newfangled values:
contempt and restriction (Wright 107). Tapscott believes these traditional but outdated
employer practices will be unsuccessful and eventually abandoned in favor of a more
integrated and progressive HR model. Than believes that much like the recent PR
problems that have devastated companies like McDonalds and Wal-Mart, stale
employee relations will also began to eat away at the bottom lines of companies that
refuse to change (Than). There is also the hostility towards younger workers for their
high confidence and reliance on technological convenience, which is misconstrued by
older workers as arrogance, laziness, and a sense of entitlement. At 27 Linh sees these
sentiments as less of a serious hindrance and more of a natural relationship between
people of different generations:

It's just the same old story between older adults and younger
adults. Most people believe their generation 'did it right' and
if the next generation doesn't do it the same way then it is
somehow wrong. My parents grew up in a time when you
didn't ask questions about who you worked for. You went in
on time, did exactly what you were told, and went home

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happy to even have a job. They didn't know much about the
people they worked for, the foods they ate, or the people that
governed them. I think its a little bit of confusion/dissolution
at how much things have changed in such a small time
period... I also think its a little bit of jealousy. (Than)

Linh may be right. While older generations expected long boring hours with strict
rules and nothing to break the monotony but the clock on the wall, Millennials have
much more freedom to choose how they work and to influence the work they do. The
shift to a climate of transparency is not only restricted to the political sector but is also
spreading to the business sector and many companies are being forced to reevaluate
and reform in the light of public scrutiny. An interview for a job feels more like entering
into a mutually beneficial relationship with both sides attempting to look attractive to the
other. "When I go to an interview, I am evaluating the company just as much, if not
more, than they are me. I wouldn't want to give my time and energy for something I
don't agree with," Linh says. Whether you agree with her philosophy or not it is clear
that Millenials see a much different version of the American Dream to which they are
entitled than anything their grandparents could have imagined.

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Works Cited
Wright, Aliah. D. Millennials: Bathed in Bits. HRMagazine 55.7 (2010): 40-41. Print.
Reprinted in: EWRT 1A Composition and Reading. Fall 2015. By Ed. Ruth
Trimble. San Diego: University Readers, 2015. [107-108]. Print.

Than, Linh. Dental Hygienist. Aesthetic Dental Care, San Jose, CA. Interview. 2 Nov.
2015.