Once again I'm piggy-backing on something Jon posted in Google Reader, but I haven't figured out how to comment on any of the "shared items" in Google Reader yet, and of course I have an opinion that I want to express! I'm not going to take time to quote the article, called Understanding Generation Y, since my point is more about the principle than the content, but clicking the link will take you to the pdf itself. It is somewhat interesting, but not, I think, particularly revealing.
When our church invested in a Korg electronic keyboard, everyone was amazed at the quality of the instruments sounds, and how much they sounded like the real instruments—everyone, that is, except those who were most familiar with those instruments. The pianists hated the piano sound, but thought the flute was great. The flute players thought the flute sound anemic, but the harp beautiful. The more you knew about a particular instrument, the less you were satisified with the attempt to distill its sound into something electronic.
So here, I suspect. I read the supposed characteristics of the Baby Boomer generation and found it only partially true in general and certainly not true of us, yet caught myself accepting the truth of the depictions of other generations. Finding characteristics of myself and those I know in all of the generational descriptions, I'm not convinced these stereotypes are any more accurate or helpful than the horoscopes on the placemats in certain Chinese restaurants. Like the placemats, they can be fun—but dangerous to put much faith in when making real life decisions.
