The Lost Generation?

On Mother’s Day, I was reflecting how proud we are to have raised two “digital natives”. From the day they were born, their timeline is digitized and stored on Google Drive and Facebook. My daughter had flown to over 20 countries by the age I had taken my first flight. My son used supercomputers in a summer project to analyze molecular structures. They have grown up with iTunes, Pixar, Spot GPS tracking, OpenTable. Their peers are even more savvy with digital tools. It is the generation best suited for our increasingly digital economy. Yet, as I continue my research for the next book, there is a feeling of discomfort whether we are effectively utilizing this talent. As Jordan Weissman points out in the Atlantic

"Every generation likes to believe that it came of age at an especially trying moment in history. Millennials have the Great Recession to lament. Gen X had the dotcom bust. The Boomers had Vietnam. And the Silents had the early Cold War, complete with the not-so-silly threat of nuclear war. But at least when it comes to the job market, I think we can all agree by now that today's young adults are deserving of at least a few extra pity points."

I sat in the back of the room as Mark Hurd, CEO of Oracle presented at his HCM conference. The audience seemed surprised when he shared 38% of Oracle’s employee base are Millennials and that they are hiring thousands of graduates straight out of college every year. The feeling seemed to be – this is not Google, why is a legacy software company hiring so many young? There was even more surprise when Hurd confessed he had originally bought into many "myths" about Millennials - that they feel more entitled, that they are not as loyal to employers, that they care more about flexibility than pay or career. Over time and based on plenty of data (he likes detailed metrics in every aspect of business) he presented that "all generations adopt technology at about same rate", "all are looking for respect and recognition at work" and "all care about career development".

While it is good to have sympathetic executives like Hurd, we have burdened this generation with an incredible amount of student debt.

Anthropologist David Graeber poignantly summarizes it “Student loans are destroying the imagination of youth. If there’s a way of a society committing mass suicide, what better way than to take all the youngest, most energetic, creative, joyous people in your society and saddle them with, like $50,000 of debt so they have to be slaves?"

In many ways it is a lot worse overseas - even in developed countries like Spain unemployment in youth under 25 is at a seasonally adjusted 45%. And in many cases, as in the Arab world, the young are using their digital savvy to cause social unrest and even terrorism.

How did we get here? Lots of factors I will catalog in the book – governments, politicians, corporations, parents, and yes even the young themselves have all contributed to this mess.

It’s not all negative, though. I cherish stories like the dealership in Quincy, Mass., which employs high school students as young as 14 to teach customers how to use the increasingly complex technology in their vehicles.

People are panicked about machines/automation and jobless futures. My book research leads me to not be so worried about that. I am finding adoption of automation tends to be evolutionary and humans adjust. To me, it is far more important that we keep productive and challenge this generation of young, digitally savvy workers.