Generations (Gen X, Millennials & more!) 👪 English Vocabulary with Jennifer

Hi everyone. I'm Jennifer from English with Jennifer.

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Some people have told me that I look like Winona Ryder.

I don't think I'm her doppelganger, but I suppose there are some similarities.

I generally take the comparison as a compliment because I like the actress.

Guess what I have in common with Winona Ryder,

Uma Thurman, Yao Ming, and

Tiger Woods?

We all belong to Generation X.

We are Generation Xers.

That means we were born between the years 1965 and 1980.

What generation do you belong to? Do you know?

Let's talk about generations and generational differences. Learn some important vocabulary

related to this topic.

We can talk about generations in terms of parents and children.

We use phrases like: my generation,

my parents' generation,

my grandparents' generation,

the younger generation today.

But the interesting thing is that a wide age gap between siblings can mean that brothers and sisters

belong to different generations. I have three brothers.

My two older brothers and I were born before 1980.

Our younger brother was born after 1980.

So technically, he's a millennial.

Millennials are connected to the late 1980s and the early 1990s.

They're called millennials because they were becoming young adults at the start of the new millennium.

The exact years are 1981 to 1996.

Millennials are also referred to as Generation Y, but that name is less common.

My brothers and I get along very well, and we can talk about almost anything.

But it is true that my two older brothers and I know more songs,

movies, and TV shows from the 1970s.

That was part of our early childhood.

Our younger brother watched different cartoons and listened to different music growing up.

They say, by the way, that the music we love the most is the music we listen to as teenagers.

Do you agree with that?

I do. I love music from different time periods, including classical music,

but the music I love the most is music from the 1980s. That's when I hit my teenage years.

But all of my brothers and I experienced something very important.

We all remember life without the Internet. We didn't really use computers and laptops until we were young adults.

Cell phones came even later.

It's the generation after the millennials that's known to be very tech-savvy.

They grew up with more technology. They know more about it and they're very comfortable using it.

People born in the late 1990s and the early 2000s our post-millennials.

"Post" means "after."

Post-millennials are also referred to as Generation Z.

Post-millennials were born between 1997 and 2012.

I bet some of you watching right now are post-millennials. Right?

Another way we can divide people is according to their experience with technology.

My children are digital natives. They've grown up with digital technology.

This kind of technology is familiar and comfortable to them. They're the ones who taught me how to use Instagram.

That's because I'm a digital immigrant. I was already an adult when I started to use digital technology as part of my daily life.

They say that digital natives and digital immigrants think differently,

process information differently, and behave differently.

To some degree,

I think that's true.

But I think many digital immigrants have adopted views and habits of digital natives.

For example, I love when things are done fast. I hate to waste time. It's in my nature.

So I love high-speed Internet access, and I wish other aspects of life could move just as quickly.

Maybe there's less comfort with technology

among the baby boomers. These are people who were born after the Second World War.

They were born between 1946 and 1964.

After the war, there was a baby boom in the U.S., a big increase in the population.

People were having babies. That's where the name "baby boomer" comes from.

There's some debate over the expression

"OK, boomer." It's being used quite often on social media. Is it offensive or not?

If it's being used to criticize someone for not understanding or knowing something because they're "too old,"

then, yes, it's likely offensive.

But in my opinion, it depends on the relationship between the speaker and the listener.

It depends on the situation and the tone of voice.

My kids, for example,

sometimes tease me about being too old, and it can be annoying at times, but it's also funny.

So when they do this, I don't take great offense.

Now we're getting into the topic of ageism, and you need to be careful

how you view people and how you treat people based on their age.

There are different forms of discrimination. Right?

Racism. Sexism.

Well, ageism is when you don't treat people fairly because of their age. You judge them for being old.

What do you think? Is it fair for a company to hire people only under the age of 40?

When is age an advantage because it gives you experience? And when is age a concern?

We're facing this question as we get ready for the next U.S. presidential election.

The U.S. president by law must be at least 35 years old, but there's no age limit.

Should there be? What do you think?

Okay. Let's try a quick quiz.

I'll name ten famous people and you tell me which generation they each belong to. Ready?

Barack Obama

Born in 1961, Barack Obama is a baby boomer.

Donald Trump

Born in 1946,

he is a baby boomer, but just barely.

If Trump had been born one year earlier, he would have belonged to another generation.

Some talk about the Silent Generation

when they referred to people born between 1925 and 1945.

But there's some debate and confusion over the name.

It's honestly not a name that I hear used as much as the other names for different generations.

Why the Silent Generation?

Were they silent and they didn't complain about things?

Was it a silent time because they had less technology?

Or maybe it was silent in the sense that it was a lower period. This was the time of the Great Depression in our country.

Let's go on with our quiz.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Born in 1974, he belongs to Generation X.

Mark Zuckerberg

Born in 1984, he's a millennial.

Taylor Swift

Born in 1989, she's also a millennial.

Steven Spielberg

Born in 1946, Spielberg is a baby boomer.

Jennifer Lawrence

Born in 1990, she's a millennial.

Michael Jackson

Born in 1958, Jackson was a baby boomer.

Bernie Sanders

Born in 1941, he's a few years short of being a baby boomer. Bernie Sanders belongs to the Silent Generation.

Millie Bobby Brown

Born in 2004, Millie Bobby Brown is a post-millennial. And if you don't know her name,

maybe you belong to another generation or you just haven't watched the TV show Stranger Things.

All right. Here's the list of generations again. The Silent Generation is from 1925 to 1945.

Baby boomers were born between 1946 and 1964.

Generation X is from 1965 to 1980.

Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996.

Post-millennials they were born between 1997 and 2012.

Feel free to post what generation you belong to in the comments.

I'd also be interested in hearing what you have to say about differences between generations.

If you'd like to talk about generational differences or any other topic that interests you,

consider booking a private lesson with me through my website.

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