Brian Lehrer: Over the last two weeks on the show, many of you heard or participated in our call-ins on the most defining news events of anyone's lifetime, decade by decade. We started with callers in your '90s and worked our way down to callers in your '20s. We heard about defining events from Pearl Harbor in 1941 to January 6th, then 2021, that 80-year span from people who have lived through some or all.

Today and tomorrow, we'll do a short addend not by decade this time but by generation. Today, if you consider yourself Generation Z or a Millennial, does generation identity have a meaning for you, and what other generation do you think gets you or doesn't? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, I'll say it again.

If you consider yourself Generation Z or a Millennial, does generation identity have a meaning for you, and what other generation do you think gets you or doesn't 212-433-WNYC 433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Tomorrow we'll invite you to answer the same question if you are generation X or older. Today, if you consider yourself Generation Z or a Millenial, the central question is, does generation identity have a meaning for you.

If you want to throw it in, what other generation do you think gets you or doesn't? Is there generational conflict or tension that you experience, 212-433-9692. Some people sometimes say understanding skips a generation. My grandparents get me better than my parents do, that kind of thing. The Pew Research Center, just so we know what we're talking about, defines Millennials roughly as people born between 1981 and 1996, born after that, and they consider you Gen Z. The oldest Millennials would be around 42.

Now, the older Gen Zers would be about 26, but you know who you are, and what generation you identify as if any. If you consider yourself Generation Z or a Millennial, does generation identity have a meaning for you, and if you want, what other generation do you think gets you or doesn't, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692, or Tweet @BrianLehrer.

I know generations are generalizations and can miss a lot of nuance in individual differences. If two people are born on the same day, but one grows up, say white and affluent and native-born on the upper East side, and the other is a Guatemalan immigrant English language learner in El Paso, or pick whatever differences you want, your experiences might be so different within the generation, and you can talk about that, too, when you call in from your particular vantage point, whatever that is.

Also, many people of a generation do have shared experiences at least to some meaningful degree based on when you come of age. People do experience the world in that way to some degree. If you consider yourself a Millennial or Gen Z, does generation identity have a meaning for you and what other generation do you think gets you or doesn't? If you want to shout that out one way or the other, 212-433-WNYC, 433-969.

As your calls are coming in, I thought it might be interesting for everybody, if I cite some generational observations relevant to this from two articles. In 2019, Business Insider had one comparing some traits of Millennials versus baby boomers. It said, for example, Millennials have less money than their parents did at the same age. According to the Federal Reserve, Millennials have lower earnings, fewer assets, and less wealth compared to baby boomers.

Not surprisingly, it also says Millennials are slower to own homes than previous generations. Growing up through the evictions and foreclosure notices of the 2008 financial crisis, Millennials spend more money than their predecessors on high rent prices and paying off student loans.

It adds that research from a Charles Schwab report found that instead of mortgages, Millennials are more likely to spend their paychecks on transportation like Ubers and Lyfts, coffee, gadgets, clothes, and live entertainment and sports, but Millennials are less likely to have money in the bank. Also on marriage, Millennials put off marriage more than baby boomers.

It says nearly 50% of baby boomers were married between the ages of 18 to 32 while near 26% of Millennials only half the baby boomer rate are married in the same age range. The decline in marriage rates among Millennials reflects a number of cultural and economic shifts, says Business Insider, including the recession of the late 2000s.

Other trends like the increase in women in the workforce and the decline in religiousness have also shaped Millennials' views of marriage. There's that. An article in the Business Magazine Inc compares Millennials and Gen Z. That one says, Millennials growing up knew a world of prosperity least as kids born during the Reagan and Clinton years times were good.

Zs, on the other hand, have grown up watching their parents endure the hardships of both the economic collapse of 2008 and the crippling financial impact of a global pandemic. It says Millennials are diverse, but for Zs diversity is a cause. Another one, both generations are stressed out, but Gen Z is far more anxious by their own admission. Gen Zs are anxiety-ridden, lost, moody, social, and self-involved more than any other generation.

According to the survey, they believe that mental health should be openly discussed in the workplace. Also at work according to data from LinkedIn's workforce Confidence survey, 80% of Gen Z reported that better alignment with their values and interests was a priority in a place of employment compared with just 59% among Millennials. The last piece of this is about media. It's really interesting.

It says Millennials have finally cut the cord, but Zs have never had a cord to cut. The article cites a survey by YPulse that found 21% of Millennials are still on cable compared with just 13% of Gen Zs, the majority of whom hang out on YouTube. It says it found that fully 64% of Gen Z get the majority of their media content on YouTube, and in fact, it's the first place Zs go to find information about anything they don't know versus Google for Millennials.

They're the same company, YouTube and Google but an interesting distinction, if true. Again, those are generalizations, but maybe some of those things ring true for you. You tell us, especially about your financial situations by generation, and how that affects your choices, your emotional state, like anxiety levels and openness about them, your values at work, and your relationship to the media, including the internet.

You fill in these blanks. If you consider yourself a Millennial or Gen Z, does generation identity have a meaning for you, and what other generation do you think gets you or doesn't? We'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer: BrianLehrer on WNYC, now to your calls. If you are a Millennial or a member of Gen Z, on what if anything your generation identity means to you, and if there are other generations that get you more or less?

Let me just say that there are so many Millennials calling in. It is the biggest generation. I think they're even more Millennials now than baby boomers. We're going to have to bump some of you. Apologies to make room on some lines for some more Gen Zers. Gen Zers, we're making room for you, and a few of you Millennials, don't be insulted if we bump you, it's not about you, it's about us. 212-433-WNYC, Gen Z listeners, 212-433-9692. We'll start with Kate in Saratoga Springs. Hi, Kate.

Kate: Hey, Brian. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good. Millennial, I presume.

Kate: I am a true Millennial.

Brian Lehrer: What defines your generational identity, if anything?

Kate: Sure. I really think that as a Millennial we were one of the last generations that had a true childhood. When I say that, I think we were one of the last generations where technology and social media didn't seep into our childhood. As a kid, I was out playing in the backyard or playing with toys and doing make-believe, and then all of a sudden, I think Gen Z started to seep in of iPads at three years old, at the dinner table, and all this stuff And kids younger and younger. I'm the oldest of all the kids in my family. I have cousins that are end of high school going into college and just seeing the difference in that. Just even them in high school now back to when I was in high school, and I can't even imagine growing up and being their age now and what the influences that are going on for them. It's crazy to me to wrap my head around. I think it affects too like my ideas around wanting to be a parent at some point.

I think it's almost swayed me further away from wanting to be a parent. I wasn't necessarily someone or a woman that had that maternal urge to be a mom ever. I think the idea of having to navigate raising a child in today's age is even more daunting that it even pushes me further away from the idea.

Brian Lehrer: So interesting. Kate, thank you. Thank you for starting us off even with those troubling thoughts. Astrid gen Z in Northfield Minnesota. You're on WNYC. Hi, Astrid.

Astrid: Hi, Brian. Thanks so much for taking my call. It was my New Year's resolution to call in. Here I am.

Brian Lehrer: One New Year's resolution check.

Astrid: I am from Brooklyn, but I'm a senior in college in Minnesota, and as I get closer to graduation, I'm thinking about where I'll be and what I'll do. What scares me is that my mom moved to New York 40 years ago. She's about 65. For her it wasn't such a big deal to move to New York and get random jobs, but I don't think I will be able to afford moving back to New York unless I live with my parents or get a good job, or at least I won't be anywhere close to where I'm working. That really scares me.

Brian Lehrer: Do you talk to your friends about that? We don't think we're going to wind up as financially well off as our parents' millennials go through that too relative to the baby boomers. Do you talk about that with your friends and decide how you're going to navigate it at all?

Astrid: Totally. I think one big difference between a lot of my friends, I'm a cinema major, which when I think about my friends who are computer science majors or bio majors, it seems like the path to jobs and making more money is a lot clearer. I wouldn't change my major for anything, but a lot of them decide what they're going to study based on how much money they can make.

Brian Lehrer: Astrid, thank you very much. Call us again. Good luck out there in Minnesota. Charlotte in Larchmont in Westchester you're on WNYC. Hi, Charlotte.

Charlotte: Hi, Brian. Oh, man, I should be keeping track of the amount of times I've called in and actually gotten on your show. It's been a couple of times. I'm always grateful too. I love that I get to listen to you on my lunch break. I'm a teacher. I guess I was calling to say that I don't really know where I fall. I was born in 92. I think that technically makes me a millennial.

Brian Lehrer: It does by the usual measurement. You'd be about four years older than the oldest Gen Z they say.

Charlotte: Then I have friends who are younger. My [inaudible 00:13:25] is six years younger than me. Again like I mentioned I'm also an elementary school teacher. I'm around young people a lot. My family, we all live together. I'm with my parents. They are of the definite like baby boomer generation. My dad was actually born on the day the Adam bomb was dropped in 1945. I really feel like I span many generations because I spend a lot of my time with one generation and a lot of my time with another generation.

Brian Lehrer: Are there qualities about yourself that you feel are millennial or Gen Z?

Charlotte: A lot of me feels like I have this nostalgia for a past that I was never a part of if that makes sense. I yearn for a simpler time. Sometimes although I do I am able to adapt. I'm very adaptable and able to live in a world and learn the technology. Sometimes it feels like it is so much. I definitely do feel like there's so much more stimuli than even when I was younger. I was a kid who just grew up on hippo playground and the Riverside Park and never knew an iPad until my 20s. I don't know. I feel like I'm just drifting through the generation, through the most millennials.

Brian Lehrer: Two millennials in a row now who have a nostalgia for a less tech-oriented, less green-oriented time. Charlotte, thank you very much. Let's see. Oh, here's another casper. Colin in Nashville you're on WNYC. Hi, Colin.

Colin: Hi, Brian. I was born in summer of '96. A lot of metrics put it at '95 or '96 as the cutoff depending on where you look. Despite being on that liminal area, I very strongly identify with being a millennial. Whenever someone a few years older than me tries to be like, "Oh, you're a zoomer." I push back hard on that. That might be because like I'm the youngest sibling. I was one of the youngest people in my graduate school class.

Brian Lehrer: What does it mean? What makes you feel like a millennial?

Colin: First, I would say growing up on still mostly DVDs when not mostly dreaming services or Netflix still growing up on shows like Wire and The West Wing. Growing up with CRT Giant Tube TVs. We had dial-up when I was a kid basically, pretty painful experience.

Brian Lehrer: Colin, thank you. So many of these calls are media. It's so interesting. It's media, media, media. Here's another one I think. Hope in Glenrock you're on WNYC. Hi, Hope.

Hope: Hi. I was born in 2004. I'm in the middle of the Gen Z generation. I definitely do feel like there's a divide between Gen Z and millennials. I do think part of it has to do with technology, and I think the different usages of it on different social media platforms, I see a lot of Gen Zs making fun of millennials and vice versa.

I do disagree with what other people have been saying about how Gen Z solely grew up on smartphones and laptops and stuff. During most of my childhood up until when I was like 11 or 12, I still used DVDs and watched cable and all that stuff. I don't think it was till when I hit middle school that things switched over. I do still feel like a lot of my generation grew up on DVDs.

Brian Lehrer: Does any of this make you or your peers come out certain ways socially or with your values or anything like that?

Hope: That's an interesting question. I think that it's shifted as I've gotten older because when I was younger we weren't so focused on phones and devices, but as we've gotten older more socially has been on social media and growing up on social media and even the different social media platforms that we primarily use have changed as I've gotten older, and I think are still changing.

Brian Lehrer: Hope, thank you very much and as we near the end of this segment, thank you millennials and Gen Z for showing up in such large numbers. We're not going to be able to get to all of you but let me get one more millennial in here. Catherine in Manhattan you're on WNYC. Hi, Catherine.

Catherine: Hi. Oh, my goodness. You're such a idol [unintelligible 00:19:04] NPR is like our favorite.

Brian Lehrer: QXR I imagine.

Catherine: I'm sorry?

Brian Lehrer: QXR I imagine our sister station if you were to Juilliard you're probably a classical music listener right?

Catherine: Yes, piano major. I think that millennials do have a very unique struggle compared to most generations. I think we're the first generation where we were not brought up to prepare for a world that we're going to live in as adults.

Brian Lehrer: Because the world changed so much compared to what your parents expected it to be?

Catherine: Absolutely, and also what was available while we were growing up, we couldn't have anticipated for example everything would be online. As a old-fashioned musician, I still find that very uncomfortable. I think that because you mentioned how millennials have so much financial struggles and this and that, and I think one of the reasons is because as we were growing up the things we were learning, the things we focused on were not necessarily the things we would have focused on if we had known.

Brian Lehrer: What was coming. Catherine, thank you very much. You get the last word for today. Tomorrow we're going to do the same thing for Generation X and above.

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