When I search Google Images for “millennials” these are the first five pictures that are shown to me**:
These images are typical of the images that Google gives.
Look at the faces in these images and ask yourself this question: How old are these people?
I’ll be a more specific: Are any of these people over 25? Anyone over 30? Anyone below the age of 20?
The Millennial generation were born between 1977 and 1997, as such they are aged between 39 and 19.
All of the pictures above seek to be representative of race, creed and sex but none of them (in my view) represents the breadth of age that the Millennial generation covers.
If these faces are what you picture when you think of the Millennial generation then you are missing most of the generation.
- You are missing the faces of married people, and divorced people.
- You are missing the faces of people who have worked for the same employer for 20 years.
- You are missing the faces of home owners.
- You are missing the faces of people with teenage children. Some of whom will themselves be millennials.
If we are going to generalise we need to make sure that we do it in a way that is reasonably representative.
** I’d expect your images to be different because Google delivers different results to different people.
Graham Chastney 