I thought my (Millennials) generation was born in 1992 or afterwards. So I was about to challenge your 'mid thirties' assertion. Wikipedia also has a wide range of start and stop birth years, ranging from 1976 to 1996 as the start birth year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials#Date_and_age_range...
I'm riiight on the cusp; born in '82, graduated in 2000. My wife was born in '81, graduated in '99. We're definitely more millenial than GenX - my older siblings (born in '70, '72, '75) are total GenX'ers. The GenX'ers had computers as tweens/teens, so they definitely grew up as all this tech stuff was developing, but I've literally never lived in a house without a computer. Quite literally: my parents bought a ZX-81 for my older siblings the same week I was born.
We both have younger siblings who were born in '84 (graduated in high school 2002). They're the oldest of what I'd call "true millenials" - I think one of the big distinguishing things is that those who graduated after 2000 had Facebook in college, whereas I didn't. Sure, there was ICQ, IRC, various web forums, Myspace and Friendster and all that stuff, but it wasn't quite the same; those didn't have nearly the reach of Facebook, and most of the people I interacted with pre-facebook I didn't know IRL. I used Facebook to keep in touch with College friends after we all graduated and did the whole post-college-diaspora thing, but my brother and his friends used Facebook constantly as a key part of their social life.
Additionally, cell phones were much more prevalent for the "true millenials" - my brother and I both got cell phones in '03, and for him it was a core part of his college experience.
Facebook as a determiner is an interesting one. I'm also on the cusp but delayed uni by a few years, and so Facebook popped up while I was at uni and changed everything.
That's pretty much exactly what I said; those graduating HS after 2000 didn't have FB in college. I graduated high school in 2000, college in '04, didn't have facebook till after graduation. My brother graduated HS in 2002, college in 2006, facebooked all the time.
Imo, there's a sandwich date range from around 1976 to 1982 where you either identify as Gen X or Gen Y/millennial.
I'm someone in that gap and identify much more closely with millennials than with the Gen X slackers, though a lot of my childhood friends also in that gap identify more with Gen X.
Perhaps it's a combination of my job, that i feel i grew up with (along with?) the internet because my parents were pretty fast in getting connected, and that i have older siblings who are very much Gen X as in leaving college during very difficult job times in the early 90s, and I never shared their experiences.
If for no for no other reason, to become more knowledgeable. I have to be honest, the only reason I went to university was because I could do that or try to find a job during the Great Recession with only a highschool diploma. Wouldn't it be great if college was for people who genuinely wanted to learn information, and not just buy a $20,000 employment certificate?
It does for particular members of society, but not necessarily for society as a whole. Like, if the best half of the jobs always went to the half of society that went to college, but college did literally nothing but waste your time for four years, you'd want to go to college and college would not increase your generation's overall wealth.
> Education does help boost incomes. But the median college-educated millennial with student debt is only earning slightly more than a baby boomer without a degree did in 1989.