Is it social media that has distorted the language of our young people, the convenience of sending a quick text message or a picture over Snapchat as opposed to a formal phone call or in-person conversation? The millennial generation — constantly making news as they change the culture of how we dress, how we work, and even how we talk, are yet again at the forefront of a social conversation.
Complaints about how millennials communicate with their peers and their elders have invigorated aging generations. As the younger generation begins to flood the workforce and take over many aspects of society, older generations find their fair share of reasons to alienate these young folk and complain about their differing habits.
As texting has become the primary form of communication, along with it has come changes in how people speak. Texting was created to speed up communication, and it encourages abbreviations and cultural slang. ‘Ttyl’ (talk to you later), and ‘brb’ (be right back) are common farewells used among individuals to say goodbye to one another over text. These trending abbreviations are frustrating to older individuals who simply cannot keep up with the constantly developing new language.
With these abbreviated conversations has come an acceptance for casual everything, encouraging passive communication and a lack of confrontation among individuals. These phenomenons are proven, as many members of the millennial generation struggle to conduct a proper interview for a job or hold a conversation with an adult for more than five minutes.
This lack of confrontation was observed by Molly Worthen of The New York Times. In her article, Worthen expressed concern about the phrase “I feel like,” which has become a standard beginning to many millennial’s sentences. Although a seemingly simple phrase that individuals could determine holds little to no meaning, if analyzed, it reveals quite a bit about this generation.
“These people don’t think, believe or reckon. They ‘feel like,’” Worthen wrote. “’I feel like’ masquerades as a humble conversational offering, an invitation to share your feelings, too — but the phrase is an absolutist trump card. It halts argument in its tracks.”
Whether or not millennials are aware of the trends they’ve begun, there is an association between the “I feel like” sentiment and the lack of confrontational skills among this generation.
People must be able to form their own thoughts and opinions, or else eventually, when millennials completely take over the workforce, there will be a clear divide among those who can resolve an issue and those who sit on the sidelines.
