Why 18-24s Are Actually More Like the Rest of Us than Many Imagine – Graeme Hutton, UM

Many who look at the habits and beliefs of 1824s often make numerous claims about how young adults are different to previous generations Yet if we look at the core values that 1824s regard as the most important outwardly they can look remarkably close to what many of us might view as the key values that are important to us allIn case youamp8217re wondering that quintessential materialistic symbol of the American Dream owning your home comes in at number 6 with 60 of 1824s agreeingYou might also be quizzical at number 4 on the list and why young adults so urgently feel the need to create envy But thatamp8217s easy to explain If you can create envy among your peers then you have created the most potent symbol in youth culture social currency Having something new to talk about or be a rallying point among your social group is the key reason why everything from fashion to music and from the latest blockbuster movie to the most recent social media app is a driving cultural force among young adults When Oscar Wilde wittily penned amp8220There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about and that is not being talked aboutamp8221 appropriately it was in his novel about the pursuit of eternal youth The Picture of Dorian GrayMajor Shifts in Personal Values in the Last 4 YearsPerhaps what is surprising about todayamp8217s 1824s is how their values are moving so quickly it can be a trap for the unwary We can see these shifts in the map below which indexes the attitudinal changes in four years between 2013 and 2009 with women 1824 on the vertical axis and men 1824 on the horizontal axisA fullsize version of this chart is available hereamp160In just four years among 1824s thereamp8217s been a big shift in the 30 key personal values UM tracks via its survey Media in Mind The average shift has been a lift of least 15 for both genders The values that have jumped up so positively tend to be driven by the top five values we saw earlier such as Having a happy family or Being happy with who you are However alongside these enduring utopian values as shown in the mapamp8217s upper righthand quadrant which represents an upward shift for both men and women we see comparable increases in insecurity typified by the statements Life is very stressful and Iamp8217m unsure how to achieve my goals in lifeGreat Expectations The uneasy and volatile cocktail of seeking utopia blended with feelings of insecurity is nothing new for younger generations What is new is the magnitude of it Both Life is stressful and Unsure how to achieve my goals in life are principally driven by 1824 men and each has moved up by 60 to 70 in just four years It is wellknown that younger adults are more stressed than the rest of the population and young women are generally more stressed than men but whatamp8217s now happening is that men seem to be catching upThe everyday factors underpinning stress are known to us all work money relationships and family The anxieties young adults additionally cite include dating peer group acceptance and related areas such as social media stress and educational attainment and its potential debt Menamp8217s educational attainment relative to women appears to be emerging as a key stress point Strikingly young women are now 33 more likely than their male counterparts to have a college degreeTo be clear college completion rates are at record levels for both genders However while men are enrolling in college in greater numbers than ever before less than twothirds of them are graduating with a bacheloramp8217s degreeReturning to the map one other noticeable characteristic for either gender is that remarkably few attitudinal statements have slipped below the 100 index where 100 represents the benchmark norm of four years ago Some attitudes have just increased much more palpably than others It reflects 1824s aspirations to do more This is not a generation lacking in their yearnings But equally unaccomplished yearnings too often lead to frustration and disappointmentNot the Disappointment Some Think They Ought To BeIn mid2014 The Economist published an overview of youth across the world where its opening gambit was amp8220 Todayamp8217s young people are held to be alienated unhappy violent failures They are proving to be anything butamp8221Some pundits worry about younger adultsamp8217 declining marriage rates and many in the trade media understandably fret over the shortterm weakening in their live TV viewing But the desire to marry hasnamp8217t really shifted only the desire to do it in the right circumstances Total screen viewing among the wider demographic of 1834s is increasing not declining and more stable among 1824s While these are important behavioral shifts they should not be confused with secular attitudinal changes Such behavioral movements simply reflect the response by 1824s to take advantage of the best of what life has to offer them today I would contend that in many ways the younger generation is very much like the rest of US only more soNineteenth Century Victorians used to quip amp8220Youth is wasted on the youngamp8221 Clearly they hadnamp8217t met the current generationGraeme Hutton is SVP Group Partner Research at UM Graeme came from the UK to the US in the amp160late 90s and his only regret is that he did not do it sooner Graeme joined UM in 2006 At UM he has engineered and activated a broadbased set of integrated communications and consumer insight tools which dovetail into the agencyamp8217s burgeoning arsenal of media research products and systems Graeme can be reached at GraemehuttonumwwcomRead all Graeme39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Curious Thoughts from Curious MindsCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates at MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentariesImage at top courtesy of freedigitalphotosnet

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Why 18-24s Are Actually More Like the Rest of Us than Many Imagine – Graeme Hutton, UM

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