Intro: Millennials as Social Citizens

Adilene Flores woke up on the morning of March 25, 2006, to find several new messages from friends on her MySpace page. She wondered who could have sent her so many messages between midnight and six in the morning. The messages were all from classmates finalizing plans for the student walk-out that day at Belmont High School in downtown Los Angeles. Adilene and more than 200 of her fellow students marched that morning, and again later in the spring, to protest what they believed to be punitive immigration legislation pending in the U.S. Congress.

In total, 60,000 high school students marched for immigrant rights that day in L.A. They were matched by tens of thousands of young people across the country who organized themselves by word of mouth, chalk messages on campus sidewalks, flyers, social networking sites, text messages, instant messaging, and email to celebrate the diversity of American life.

Tens of thousands of Nigerian teenagers are learning about sexuality and the spread of AIDS by text messaging for free with the Learning about Living program.

As activists and organizers, Adilene and her peers have become something far more impressive than exceptional. They have become almost commonplace—in the U.S. and around the world. Yet, as communications technology and social media enables and inspires people—particularly youth—to increase interaction, much of this behavior has gone unrecognized. And worse, it has gone unappreciated.

In October 2007, Thomas Friedman wrote in The New York Times that young people are members of Generation Q. He meant “Q” for quiet, and inactive, on the important social questions of the day. The celebrated American globalist could not have been more wrong. This generation is making noise, whether adults can hear it or not. If people like Friedman don’t know where to look and how to hear it, that doesn’t mean youth today aren’t active citizens. Millennials are loud, fractious, and passionate, and their activist efforts are changing the world in important and profound ways.

Although generational generalities are inherently difficult to make—since not all people of a certain age have exactly the same characteristics or experiences—there are patterns of behavior that shape the narrative of today’s youth. They are fascinating and important for what they are growing up with (digital technology); how they work (collaboratively); what they believe (that they can make the world a better place to live); and how they are living their lives (green, connected, passionately, idealistically).

Some scholars believe that behavioral patterns begin to repeat every three generations. In this way, Millennials are tied to the Greatest Generation of World War II, with whom they share a sense of common purpose and idealism. But unlike earlier generations, how Millennials express their feelings, and how widely, are fundamentally different because of the digital times in which they live. They are Social Citizens, representing a nascent model and era of citizen participation that combines idealism, digital fluency, and immersion in social causes.

The concepts and trends captured in this paper are based on interviews with nearly 30 thought leaders and activists, and a review of the current literature about activism, technology, and young people. It is not intended to be a comprehensive picture of an entire generation, but rather a snapshot of the emerging concept of Social Citizens. This is the beginning of a larger conversation that needs to include young people, professional activists, and those who fund social causes. It will likely—hopefully—modify and improve the concept of Social Citizens as it is practiced, shared, and taught.