Are Millennials A Predictable Part of the Generational Cycle? | Millennial Marketing

That "Millennials" might be different from their parents, but neither generation arguably is so "unique and different" as sometimes might appear. Nearly 20 years ago, William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote “Generations,“ which suggested there is a repeating four-generation pattern in American history.

If at all accurate, Millennials are part of a pattern. Though their common generational experiences mark them as different from the three preceding generations in the cycle, the cycle will repeat, with Millennials in turn succeeded by a generation with different, but broadly predictable outlooks.

Sometimes we mistake the forest for the trees, focusing on how much "technology" is simply a background factor for Millennials. What we overlook is the pattern that suggests why their values and views are different from that of their parents, but also that those values are part of an old pattern.

If so, yet another turn is coming.

Are Millennials A Predictable Part of the Generational Cycle? | Millennial Marketing