People don't hate Millennials, they hate 21st-century technology

In many ways, millennials embody what people tend to blame for the perceived American decay in the 21st century: tech addiction and a growing culture of mistrust and individualism. It’s easy to ignore the positives they also embody, including diversity and higher interest in social justice. No trend encapsulates people’s grumpy misgivings with—and their basic misunderstanding of—millennials better than slacktivism. As far as older generations are concerned, young adults and their Ice Bucket Challenges are befuddling at best, and downright annoying at worst.

I admit it: Seeing countless videos of endless droves of people pouring buckets of cold water over their heads in the name of Lou Gehrig’s disease research got really old. Not everyone was convinced the effort was even really doing anything, because people were given the choice to do the video (the fun, public thing) or donate (the less fun, more obviously productive thing). There was a performance aspect that felt off-putting: Watch me support a good cause. But for all the controversy and griping the Ice Bucket Challenge caused, it also raised $115 million—and in November the ALS Association announced it would triple the amount it annually spends on research. Somehow, the viral challenge escaped the all-too-common pitfall of similar awareness campaigns: They don’t always yield tangible results.