[codesections]

I was born slightly outside (after) the official years for this generation, but the description for this generation seems to fit my childhood memories much more closely than many "Millennial" descriptions.

Does anyone else born in the mid/late 80s share that feeling?

[scottLobster]

Yeah I was born in 1987, which is theoretically well into "Millennial" territory by the numbers, and honestly a lot of the "characteristics" section of that article doesn't strike me as particularly well researched.

"AOL Adolescence" Yeah, AOL IM dominated late elementary/middle school.

"Developed relationships before social media". Myspace was the big thing in high school, with facebook taking over senior year because you needed a .edu address to get an account. Before that social mediate didn't really exist in its modern incarnation, every friendship prior to that was pre-social media, and the original social media relationships were largely predicated on real world relationships. Was rather nice back when that was the case.

"They usually weren't on Tinder or Grindr" Uh, Tinder's only been around since 2012, and took a while to gain prominence. Most millennials are outside of the window for Tinder to be their first dating experience. Most of my cohort had graduated college in 2010/2011, I know some people who got freaking married before Tinder even existed.

I could go on, but it seems like just another incarnation of "millennial means young and tech-addicted, so we're moving the goal posts so it means what we want it to mean and we'll make up a new word for what's leftover"

[prpl]

I’m 85, and while we had chat rooms and IM in high school, and a few kids probably had LiveJournal, 2003 was really the beginning of social media as we know it, with rapid adoption in 2004+. Texting wasn’t really a thing before ~2000, and not a very popular thing until at least mid aughts because of pricing. I think every young adult basically had a mobile by 2005.

So I think there is some real line right around 85/86 where, for those younger than that, technology/social media as we know it today, didn’t exist in High School.

Other examples would include Google.

Also, for my age, Wikipedia was really emerging during college and exploding/maturing at the end (2007). If you were born, say, after 88, you would have started college in the wikipedia era (and those born after would have had it available in high school)

That said, I think you could unequivocally say that those born after ‘90 are much different than those born before ‘85, but between those years it’s a little bit muddy.

[jonwest]

100%. Mid-80's here and even as Millennial was coming into common use it never seemed to fit quite right with me, but neither did Gen-X. I have older siblings, and I think that helps as well since I was exposed to the same kinds of things that they were which blurs those lines further.

[TeMPOraL]

There's definitely a time shift for different geographies. I consider myself fitting the overall concept, despite being born in late 1980s - I think it's because late 1980s here in Poland were like early 1980s in the US.

[jsonne]

Yeah I was born in 89 and growing up middle class in a more rural American small town we didn't get internet until the late 90s and didn't use it with any regularity until the early 00s. I got my first laptop when I was going to college in 2008.

[kitsunesoba]

This is almost exactly my story. Didn’t have access to so much as a game console, let alone a computer or internet access, until late 1996. Grew up in a rural sleepy town, lots of slow offline time until my parents’ computer was given to me as a hand-me-down in 2000.

It’s a bit crazy being able to contrast the before and after. I can’t think of much that’s happened since that really compares… even smartphones were incremental by comparison.

[salex89]

Sure, technology didn't come to all parts of the world at the same time and/or was not affordable. I was born late 80s in Europe and can relate.