Are Millenials Allergic to Google?
I was born in 1977.
That means I survived all of my youth without the internet.
We had a set of encyclopedias at home. For real. And I had to go to the library if I wanted to research anything.
For that reason, it amazes me, that on any given day, I spend hours sending emails to people answering questions that I wouldn't have ever considered asking anyone - cause I would've just Googled it.
The clients I deal with at work are primarily born from about 1995 through 2000ish. Millenials. They've never lived a day in their life without the internet. Hell, they barely lived when the world only had dial up internet!
Millenials - they grew up with information literally at their fingertips (we won't even get into the fact that I didn't own a smart phone until about 2009). They're a tweeting, snapchatting, Pokémon searching, instagramming generation. THEY HAVE WIKIPEDIA! They don't have to search for outdated information in an encyclopedia (although they made for great bathroom reading when I was young).
And yet... they seem either too fucking lazy or they're too fucking incompetent to actually use the wealth of information.
If I can't find information on the internet, I assume it isn't available. If a company doesn't have a website, I normally won't give them my business. It's because I want to find information on my own - not rely on asking someone else for it, and I value having the information available to me whenever I want it.
I spend much of my day resisting the urge to reply "well, why don't you just Google that?" to emails. Because really - why should I be the one that Googles things for people? My job description (if I had an up-to-date one... but that's another story) does not mention anything about spoon-feeding website links to people.
So yeah...
Millenials. Take some initiative. Before you ask a question, try Googling the answer. If you can't find one, or you don't understand, send an email asking for clarification. Show the person you're emailing that you have half a brain, and that aren't afraid to use it.
Cause seriously, you guys are really pissing off us Generation Xers (and Baby Boomers for that matter) who have managed to figure the internet out, even though we didn't grow up with it.
Don't play dumb. Dumb isn't becoming. It's annoying. And it makes me fear for the future.
Kids these days. They want everything handed to them on a silver platter.
/endrant
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