Maybe I'm a statistical outlier of my generation?
But I really don't think it's a uniquely millennial thing to dislike/shrink from making chitchat to random people such as hairdressers, taxi-drivers, etc.
Whatever Stuart Heritage thinks.
(Presumably he self-identifies as a millennial - opens by saying he is now going bald - is there now a post-millenial generation coming up - )
On the chatting to hairdressers thing, this is so very much not a new thing that the recesses of memory tell me that there is an Ancient Roman, or possibly Classical Greek joke:
Barber: How would Sir like his hair cut?
Customer: In total silence, thanks.
Boom! Boom!
I expect you had to be there and it was all in the telling.
I'm not sure the dislike of these forms of interaction is the result of automation, as Heritage posits: I think automation was what a lot of people had been waiting for. One of the first manifestations possibly being the manifestation of preference for ATMs over interacting with a bank teller, even during bank opening hours.
Also, Heritage is so out of order on the condom vending machine thing as millennial development: these have been around for a very long time. Pictorial evidence c. 1930s. This entry was originally posted at https://oursin.dreamwidth.org/2700266.html. Please comment there using OpenID. View
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