The new greatest generation by Joel Stein

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Introduction – The new greatest generation by Joel Stein
The new generation of youth is perceived as a lazy lot who may not achieve much in the future despite the prevailing resources in the environment. This young generation that is also known as millennials (those who were born between 1980 and 2000) have also been associated with narcissism because of the thirst for power and money by this new generation (Lundbeck p3). Consequently, the older generation has always been blaming and perceiving them as incompetent and non-hardworking individuals. As a result, Joel Stein, a millennial was provoked and decided to dig and come up with facts to analyze the space of laziness of millennials in the modern world. According to Stein, the older generation has been condemning the young generation without substantial proof. This instigated him to find cold facts to determine the depth of laziness of the millennials and the younger generation towards determining their future progress.
Stein established key characteristics of youths in the current generation and their actions that distinguish them. Stein associates the youths with enticing things, trendiness, high profile lifestyle and expensive electronics including clothes. They also prefer white-collar jobs, tasty foods, parties and extreme extroversive behavior. The need to achieve the valuables they need expose others to hard work and determination just to keep the fire burning. With the trend in place, the youths will record exemplary performance in the end.

However, this may change to the worst especially if the laziness trend that some youths display is not transformed. This paper gives a critical discussion on the new greatest generation by Stein giving its impact on the future generation of youths.
Thesis statement
The facts provided by Joel Stein will prove that the new generation will have the greatest future regarding progress or face challenges on the other hand.
Stein’s assertion
According to Stein, the older generation accuses youths as narcissism due to the invention of computers that have eased most of the workload as opposed to the period before the invention of computers. Revelations are also evident where the youths have been portrayed as having bad social behavior, extreme lifestyle and poor eating habits His research showed that in 2009, youths suffering from narcissism were on the rise by 58% than in 1982 (Stein 57). He also states that the older generations view, the younger generation as selfish and fame seeking with millennials thinking of theirown method of survival as opposed to the older generation. He gives an example of how most millennium these days are always in the search of fame.
If not being a celebrity, then most millenniums would prefer to be personal assistants of celebrities as long as their lives revolve around fame. The kind of vigor, hard work, passion and dedication with which they pursue various things, depicts how successful they will be in the next generation. However, the attributes may not yield best results in the future especially if hard work and dedication are not embraced. Stein asserts that changes in the mentality and preference of the younger generation are due to the change in the environment in which they exist. For instance, reality television shows such as Keeping up with the Kardashians teach youth how to go for what they want. As a result, millennials have become only self-centered thinking of themselves including how they can succeed in their lives. The self-centeredness may work against them and deprive them the opportunity of becoming the greatest people in the coming generation.
Youths and greater future
Stein attributes the youths’ future exemplary performance to the numerous dreams and their strife for success (Stein 13). This is because most youths today want to be successful just as their fellow millennials who have become successful at a very tender age. For instance, many CEO’s in the world today are under the age of 25 years old. Due to this, many youths compare themselves to these successful fellows making them want to be successful even more. He states that modern youth wants a job promotion after two years regardless of their performance. As a result, these youths end up with Narcissism and entitlement effects. However, he asserts that some of the change in the environment in the environmental conditions of the millennials is sometimes caused by the older generations (Lundbeck 33). He goes ahead and gives an example of Kim Kardashian, who influences a large crowd of millennials by her show Keeping up with the Kardashians yet she is from the older generation. The aggressiveness and extreme demands of the youths may work for, or against them depending on how they work or discharge their duties.
Positive aspects the Millenials
Despite the negative image of the millennials are illustrated above, these youths have quite a lot of positive prospects according to Steins research. One of the positive factors about millennials as pointed out in Stein’s facts is that these millennials are hardworking due to the motivation in the competitive world today. As stated earlier, many CEO’s in the world today are less than 25 years, and this motivates other millennials to be hard working at every opportunity they get. Also, reality television shows in the modern world today give motivation to the millennials to go for what they want in life. Moreover, Stein clearly list the attributes of millennials today citing that they are optimistic, idealists, cautious about how they make life decisions and tinkerers more than dreamers. Based on this attributes of millennials, it can be seen that the modern youths will become greater people as compared to the older youths.
Cons of the Millenials
Millenials have negative attributes associated with them that may impede their chances of being great in the future. To begin with, most youths of the new generations are very lazy. This can be attributed to the fact that most of them rely on computers to do essential chores or activities. The increase in machines and advancement of technology has made new generation youths lazy and cannot perform most duties by themselves. According to Stein, there is even an application whose function is to choose the fashion for youths in the new generation. This means that they do not undergo the stress of choosing what to wear. The second negative aspect is the inappropriate use of the internet by the new generation. According to Stein’s research, the internet these days is 90% used for the wrong reasons (Stein 21). This has contributed to the increase in immorality in the youth today creating a generation with lack virtues ad upright morals. The internet has as well promoted other undesirable impacts to the new generations such as influence on gay issues and the disappearance of some cultures (Kaklamanidou 45). These have brought more problems to the new generation as compared to the older generation youths where internet did not exist. If the highlighted aspects are not observed and mitigated effectively, then the opportunity to perform better in the future may just remain a pipe dream
Conclusion
It can be noted that the new generation has both desirable and undesirable aspects in comparison with the older generations that will determine their future performance or failure. As illustrated, the new generation youth has more desirable than undesirable features such as their kindness and hardworking abilities. In as much as the older generations’ view the new generation in a negative way, it can be concluded that the new generation is the greatest and can transform the world through innovation and creativity. Likewise, they can promote laziness that may impede them from achieving greatest performance levels.

Cited Works
Kaklamanidou, Betty, Margaret Tally, and Margaret Tally. The Millennials on Film and Television: Essays on the Politics of Popular Culture. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2014. Print.
Lunbeck, Elizabeth. The Americanization of Narcissism, 2014. Print.
Stein, Joel, Sanburn, Josh, “The New Greatest Generation” 2014. Web. 29th Nov. 2015.