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April 18, 2007 Story

Gen Y Shaped, Not Stopped, by Tragedy
The Millenial Generation has every right to be the Melancholy Generation, and the wonder is that it's not. In fact, the trauma this generation has witnessed may make its members more resilient, according to those who have studied them.

The signposts on Gen Y's road to maturity have been a somber directory of tragedy shared. The Oklahoma City bombing. Columbine. September 11. The space shuttle disasters. Hurricane Katrina. And now Virginia Tech. Previous generations of young people have had their allotment of horrors — two world wars, Vietnam, Kent State, the list is long — but no cohort of American youth has ever endured repeated mass catastrophes in the harsh, inescapable glare of a 24/7 media environment.

It has not been an easy time to grow up in the USA, says Silas Pugatch, 24, a 2005 graduate of the University of Maryland who was living in the Washington, D.C., area during the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002. And yet, he says, the randomness of horror helps his generation "just kind of realize you're at a great time in life and you should just enjoy it while you can, because you never know."

His is an attitude typical of many millennials. They have been shaped by trauma in their formative years, but they have not been broken. As a generation, they are a remarkably irrepressible, optimistic bunch, say social scientists, psychologists and generational researchers.

"For people individually and the generation broadly, going through adversity is something that can potentially strengthen the character of a generation," one child and adolescent psychologist. "They've seen the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history and the worst mass killing ever. … They have a more realistic view of the world than previous generations."

But this generation is also a stressed-out one. Many have sought counseling, and college campuses have seen increases in the numbers diagnosed with depression and other mental health disorders. Others have experienced trauma in their lives, such as domestic abuse and gang violence in their neighborhoods. For those already at risk, these events can trigger additional problems.

'A sense of urgency'

For one thing, they have each other. Frank Harrison, student body president at the University of South Florida in Tampa, was helping organize a memorial vigil to be held today for the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre. He says his generation's experience of shared tragedy "shocks us into a sense of community. It's not a sense of fear — 'Are we next?' 'Could it happen here?' It's more a sense of urgency that we have to stay together."

This they have certainly done, thanks in part to their affinity for technology. Indeed, the millennials may be the most media-saturated — and media-savvy — generation ever. They are constantly linked to one another by their buddy lists, cellphones and online networks; these links may even be one way in which they have learned to cope.

"It creates an immediate social-health network," says Adam Ross Wilson, 22, a 2006 graduate of Haverford College now working on Capitol Hill. "The chances are there's always somebody you can reach to talk about it. It makes it a lot easier not to feel alone."

Generational anxiety

For most of the millennials, the defining media moments of their young lives have been 9/11 and Columbine, the high school massacre in Littleton, Colo., in 1999. One researcher says that Baby Boomers were anxious about political assassinations because that's what they witnessed growing up. But their children's fears are different — because they witnessed mass killings of children by peers whose motives nobody can seem to understand.

More worrisome is the idea that some young people have come to view these tragedies as just "a part of life," says a professor of media and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It's something that happens now and then. They consume it to the point that they don't want to anymore, and then they quit consuming
it." Logan Stommel, 18, of Washington says he feels somewhat desensitized by all these tragedies, to the point where it doesn't affect the way he thinks about life.

"We tend to avoid the news — it's all bad — and we're pretty mellow about it," he says. "We probably know some people who are more emotionally invested. They think we're a little cold toward situations like these." Shocked and saddened as they are about Virginia Tech, "it's almost as if it's become the norm to expect the outrageous," says Kelvin Driscoll, 21, of Lakewood, Calif., a senior at the University of Southern California who wants to run for the state Senate.

'No other choice' but survival

"It's a generation that is not going to be rendered incapacitated by the trauma going on around them," says David Morrison, president of TWENTYSOMETHING Inc., a consulting and research firm based in Philadelphia.

"By necessity, it's a generation that is going to rise above it. There's really no other choice."
 

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© 2007 USA Today