Australian seniors think millennials are impolite and too politically correct, a new survey says.
The Australian Seniors Insurance Council’s Modern Australian Manners report showed 88% of Australians over 50 think Australian society is too politically correct.
The majority of seniors also said they find it frustrating to be politically correct all of the time, blaming their younger counterparts for the change in societal expectations.
Australian Seniors spokesperson and General Manager of Marketing Simon Hovell said the results are unsurprising.
“Seniors today respect the Aussie values of mate-ship, equality and taking it on the chin,” Mr Hovell said. “So it comes as no surprise that they find the rise of political correctness inauthentic and quite annoying.”
Just over half of older Australians also have a new annoyance from the younger generation.
When asked the question, ‘what bothers you the most now that didn’t bother you when you were younger,’ 50.2% of seniors said ‘over-entitled’ millennials, while 52.4% believe young people think they know everything.
Millennial’s apparent over-use of technology, bad manners, and lack of respect for authority, was also regarded as an annoyance for older Australians.
[infogram id=”seniors_graph_1-9″ prefix=”bet” format=”interactive” title=”Seniors graph 1″]RMIT’s City Journal spoke to Melburnian seniors to see whether the survey’s statistics matched up.
But many seniors were a lot more positive about the younger generation.
Carol, who didn’t want her surname published, told the City Journal young people are often misjudged.
“I think they get a very rough deal,” she said. “I think the older generation always complain about younger generations. There are always things that are going to irritate old people about young people and vice versa.”
While other older Melburnians had mixed opinions about their younger counterparts, the overall consensus is that millennials are doing their best.
