Do Millennials Lack Basic Life Skills?

The discussion's on again


Article heading image for Do Millennials Lack Basic Life Skills?

PHOTO: The Odyssey Online

The launch of a new book has prompted more discussion about millennials, and whether we've raised an "entitled" generation.

Educator Michaela Launerts has penned the novel to help young adults learn to perform crucial tasks and behaviours she believes are missing including etiquette, cooking, cleaning and other basic life skills.

Launerts, who also runs an etiquette school in Sydney, says #GIRLCODE contains all the lessons essential for "little Miss Millennials" everywhere who want to learn to cope in the professional world. 

She believes says social media is responsible for a rapid decline in people's social skills and chagrins the death of face-to-face contact, replaced by "cyberspace presence".

She's not the first or the last person to slam the young adults for their so-called lazy, entitled attitudes. Myers & Sadaghiani (2010) take aim at them as overly self-confident, self-absorbed, arrogant and spoilt.

However some experts believe that analysis is unnecessarily critical, with many stating that every young generation will experience criticism from their forebears.

"I think we have to take these generational claims with a grain of salt," said University of Melbourne Associate Professor Dan Woodman. "When it comes to things like professional communication on the job, we learn these over time.

"I think we forget that a little bit."  

 

4 July 2017




Listen Live!

Up Next