Editing Millennials (section)

==Cultural identity==
{{Quote box|
|quote = Computer games and [[computer culture]] {{sic|has}} led to a decrease in reading books. The tendency for teachers to now "[[teach to the test]]" has also led to a decrease in the capacity to [[Lateral thinking|think in lateral ways]].
|author = Richard House, [[Roehampton University]]
|quoted = 1
|width = 25%
|align = right
|source = 2009<ref name="RPM UK"/>}}
Political scientist Shirley Le Penne argues that for millennials, "pursuing a sense of belonging becomes a means of achieving a sense of being needed&nbsp;... Millennials experience belonging by seeking to impact the world."<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Le Penne|first1=Shirley|year=2017|title=Longing to Belong: Needing to Be Needed in a World in Need|journal=Society|volume=54|issue=6|pages=535–536|doi=10.1007/s12115-017-0185-y|doi-access=free}}</ref> Educational psychologist Elza Venter believes millennials are "digital natives" because they have grown up experiencing digital technology and have known it all their lives {{see below|{{section link||Use of digital technology}}, below}}. [[Marc Prensky]] created the concept of digital natives in response to the understanding that the members of the generation were "native speakers of the digital language of computers, video games and the internet".<ref>Prensky, M. (2001). "Digital natives, digital immigrants": Part 1. ''On the Horizon'', 9(5), 1–6.</ref> This generation's older members use a combination of face-to-face communication and [[computer-mediated communication]], while its younger members use mainly electronic and digital technologies for interpersonal communication.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Venter|first1=Elza|year=2017|title=Bridging the communication gap between Generation y and the Baby Boomer generation|journal=International Journal of Adolescence and Youth|volume=22|issue=4|pages=497–507|doi=10.1080/02673843.2016.1267022|doi-access=free}}</ref>

A 2013 survey of almost a thousand [[British people|Britons]] aged 18 to 24 found that 62% had a favorable opinion of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and 70% felt proud of their [[History of Great Britain|national history]].<ref name="YouGov">{{cite web|url=http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/document/jgdvn3vm4b/YG-Archive-Pol-Sun-results-190613-youth-survey.pdf|title=YouGov / The Sun Youth Survey Results|access-date=22 October 2019}}</ref> In 2017, research suggested nearly half of 18 to 34 year olds living in the UK had attended a [[Music festival|live music event]] in the previous year.<ref name="musicweek">{{cite news|url=http://www.musicweek.com/live/read/eventbrite-study-shows-millennials-choose-music-events-based-on-more-than-just-the-music/068876|title=Eventbrite study shows millennials choose music events based on more than just the music|date=21 June 2017|work=[[Music Week]]}}</ref>

[[File:Future Music Festival 2011 (5520592096).jpg|thumb|Young people at a music festival in [[Sydney]] (2011)|left]]Having faced the full brunt of the Great Recession, millennials in Europe tended to be pessimistic about the future direction of their countries, though there were significant differences, the Pew Research Center found in 2014. Millennials from countries with relatively healthy economies such as Germany and the United Kingdom were generally happier than their counterparts from struggling economies, such as Spain, Italy, and Greece. On the other hand, the young were more likely than the old to feel optimistic.<ref name="Stokes-2015" />

Millennials came of age in a time where the entertainment industry, including music, began to be affected by the Internet.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Anderson|first1=Kurt|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/books/review/Andersen-t.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090810104339/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/books/review/Andersen-t.html|archive-date=10 August 2009|url-access=subscription|url-status=live|title=Pop Culture in the Age of Obama|date=5 August 2009|work=The New York Times|access-date=29 November 2012}}</ref><ref name="All Songs Considered : NPR">{{cite web|url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91204851|title=The Sound of a Generation|date=5 June 2008|publisher=NPR|access-date=2 November 2011}}</ref><ref name="usatoday.com">{{cite news|last1=Gundersen|first1=Edna|url=https://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-12-29-musicdecade29_CV_N.htm|title=The decade in music: Sales slide, pirates, digital rise|date=30 December 2009|work=USA Today|access-date=23 December 2011}}</ref> Using artificial intelligence, Joan Serrà and his team at the [[Spanish National Research Council]] studied the massive Million Song Dataset and found that between 1955 and 2010, popular music has gotten louder, while the chords, melodies, and types of sounds used have become increasingly homogenized.<ref name="Wickham-2012">{{Cite news|last=Wickham|first=Chris|date=26 July 2012|title=Pop music too loud and all sounds the same: official|work=Reuters|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-music/pop-music-too-loud-and-all-sounds-the-same-official-idUSBRE86P0R820120726|access-date=27 October 2019}}</ref><ref name="Serrà-2012">{{Cite journal|last1=Serrà|first1=Joan|last2=Corral|first2=Álvaro|last3=Haro|first3=Martín|last4=Arcos|first4=Josep Ll.|date=26 July 2012|title=Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music|journal=Scientific Reports|volume=2|issue=521|page=521|doi=10.1038/srep00521|pmid=22837813|pmc=3405292|arxiv=1205.5651|bibcode=2012NatSR...2..521S|doi-access=free}}</ref> Indeed, producers seem to be engaging in a "[[loudness war]]", with the intention of attracting more and more audience members.<ref>{{Cite news|last=CTV News Staff|date=27 July 2012|title=New study says pop music getting louder, blander|work=CTV News|department=Entertainment|url=https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/new-study-says-pop-music-getting-louder-blander-1.895641|access-date=29 June 2020}}</ref> While the music industry has long been accused of producing songs that are louder and blander, this is the first time the quality of songs is comprehensively studied and measured.<ref name="Wickham-2012" /> Additional research showed that within the past few decades, popular music has gotten slower; that majorities of listeners young and old preferred older songs rather than keeping up with new ones; that the language of popular songs were becoming more negative psychologically; and that lyrics were becoming simpler and more repetitive, approaching one-word sheets, something measurable by observing how efficiently [[Lossless compression|lossless compression algorithms]] (such as the [[Lempel–Ziv–Welch|LZ algorithm]]) handled them.<ref name="McAlpine-2018">{{Cite web|last=McAlpine|first=Fraser|date=12 February 2018|title=Has pop music lost its fun?|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/fb84bf19-29c9-4ed3-b6b6-953e8a083334|access-date=29 December 2020|website=BBC}}</ref>
[[File:Scholastic Harry Potter Book 7 1st ed. packing box side 1.JPG|thumb|The ''Harry Potter'' series proved to be a commercial success among millennials.<ref name=":0" />]]
In modern society, there are inevitably people who refuse to conform to the dominant culture and seek to do the exact opposite; given enough time, the anti-conformists will become more homogeneous with respect to their own subculture, making their behavior the opposite to any claims of [[counterculture]]. This synchronization occurs even if more than two choices are available, such as multiple styles of beard rather than whether or not to have a beard. Mathematician Jonathan Touboul of [[Brandeis University]] who studies how information propagation through society affects human behavior calls this the [[Hipster (contemporary subculture)|hipster]] effect.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Brandeis University|date=1 March 2019|title=The hipster effect: Why anti-conformists always end up looking the same|work=Phys.org|url=https://phys.org/news/2019-03-hipster-effect-anti-conformists.html|access-date=31 December 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last1=Feingold|first1=Lindsey|last2=Garcia-Navarro|first2=Lulu|date=10 March 2019|title=Man Inadvertently Proves That Hipsters Look Alike By Mistaking Photo As Himself|work=NPR|url=https://www.npr.org/2019/03/10/702063209/man-inadvertently-proves-that-hipsters-look-alike-by-mistaking-photo-as-himself|access-date=31 December 2020}}</ref>

Once a highly successful genre on radio and then television, soap operas—characterized by melodramatic plots focused on interpersonal affairs and cheap production value—has been declining in viewership since the 1990s. Experts believe that this is due to their failure to attract younger demographics, the tendency of modern audiences to have shorter [[Attention span|attention spans]], and the rise of reality television in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Internet streaming services do offer materials in the serial format, a legacy of soap operas.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Shaath|first=Sarah|date=27 March 2019|title=Decline of soap operas: Was OJ Simpson to blame?|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47585335|access-date=3 November 2020}}</ref> However, the availability of such on-demand platforms saw to it that soap operas would never again be the cultural phenomenon they were in the twentieth century, especially among the younger generations, not least because cliffhangers could no longer capture the imagination of the viewers the way they did in the past, when television shows were available as scheduled, not on demand.<ref>{{Cite news|last=O'Donnell|first=Hugh|date=17 February 2015|title=Why the soap opera is in terminal decline|work=The Conversation|url=https://theconversation.com/why-the-soap-opera-is-in-terminal-decline-37669|access-date=3 November 2020}}</ref>

Millennial [[Fandom|fans]], especially girls and women, have been the key factor behind the commercial success of franchises such as ''[[Harry Potter]]'', ''[[Twilight (novel series)|Twilight]]'', and ''[[The Hunger Games]]''. More recently, they came out in large numbers for the movie [[Barbie (film)|''Barbie'' (2023)]] and musician [[Taylor Swift]]'s [[The Eras Tour|Eras Tour]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite news |last=Baulch |first=Emily Grace |date=18 February 2024 |title=From Harry Potter to Taylor Swift: how millennial women grew up with fandoms, and became a force |url=https://theconversation.com/from-harry-potter-to-taylor-swift-how-millennial-women-grew-up-with-fandoms-and-became-a-force-211890 |access-date=21 October 2024 |work=The Conversation}}</ref> Despite having preschool children as the intended audience, the animated television show [[Bluey (TV series)|''Bluey'']] (2018–present) has also captured the imagination of Millennial adults with and without children. For them, ''Bluey'' portrays family life in a positive way, fuels nostalgia, and helps them heal [[Emotional injury|emotional wounds]] from childhood.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Mumphrey |first=Cheyanne |date=April 19, 2024 |title=Not a toddler, not a parent, but still love ‘Bluey’? You’re not alone |url=https://apnews.com/article/bluey-show-popularity-5271981ec52b9ce3b730ac70b0542947 |access-date=May 5, 2025 |work=Associated Press}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Balanzategui |first=Jessica |last2=Baker |first2=Djoymi |date=May 1, 2024 |title=Why are adults without kids hooked on Bluey? And should we still be calling it a ‘kids’ show’? |url=https://theconversation.com/why-are-adults-without-kids-hooked-on-bluey-and-should-we-still-be-calling-it-a-kids-show-228610 |access-date=May 5, 2024 |work=The Conversation}}</ref>