Modern Life: What is millennial burnout?
Millennials are absolutely exhausted – so exhausted that they’ve made up their own name for the condition: ‘millennial burnout’.
The term was coined in January 2019 in a Buzzfeed article by Anne Helen Petersen: ‘How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation’.
The expression has gathered steam, prompting people to share their experiences and identify their own burnouts – such as Stanford [University] burnout.
The ‘sufferers’ of burnout are typically obsessed with work, permanently tired and unable to relax. They cannot function without thinking about the next thing on the to-do list. They suffer from insomnia, anxiety and depression. And no, you don’t have to be a snowflake to melt when millennial burnout strikes.
So far, so normal. It sounds much like any other kind of burnout. But is it?
With the rise of smartphones, we millennials – I’m 24 – are all constantly on the go. We are contactable at all hours, for work or play. A study in 2015 found that 69 per cent of workers are regularly required to work outside office hours. Our work and social lives blend together. We are unable to switch off.
Social media add a different problem to the mix: brandification. Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have made us more self-conscious than ever before. We perfect and curate ourselves relentlessly, in order to look well-rounded. We go to the gym, invest in our appearance and party in the right place – not to enjoy it, but so that we can be seen to enjoy it. All of which boosts our personal brand.
Image is crucial, and not just socially. There is glamour in working late, martyring ourselves in exchange for bragging rights. When you’re offered a chance to go to the pub after work, you will stoically proclaim, ‘Nah, gotta work late,’ in the hope of receiving the silent adulation of your peers. Whatever the causes, millennials are having a rough time of it. Some 33 per cent of millennials in the US say they suffer from depression or anxiety, while 74 per cent say they are so stressed that they are unable to cope. And 49 per cent of stressed 18-24-yearolds say that comparing themselves with others has been a source of stress.
As a result, some of them end up suffering from ‘errand paralysis’. It is pretty much what you’d expect: an inability to complete simple tasks, such as going to the dry cleaner. Helen Anne Petersen describes them as tasks whose ‘primary beneficiary is me, but not in a way that would actually drastically improve my life’. Those simple tasks give way to the things millennials think they need to do to maximise the time they dedicate to their brand. Both work and free time must be filled with ‘meaningful’
tasks. They must work during the day and be sociable at night.
Millennial burnout isn’t caused by politics, job insecurity or exasperated parents, as some have said. While I have no doubt that Brexit fatigue is real, I’m not convinced by millennial burnout.
It smacks of unbridled egotism. The way we represent ourselves has become everything to us. If something isn’t significantly ‘meaningful’ (ie worth the time), it remains undone. Millennial Burnout is really just millennial self-pity.