844 Chapter 31 From Boomers to Millennials
people with ideas or perspectives different from their
own. But others endorsed the Internet as an ideal if
somewhat odd way to meet strangers and exchange
opinions.Second Life, a virtual 3D world populated
by some 18 million “residents,” was among the
innumerable interactive games that allowed strangers
to converse and imaginatively interact. In 2009
Linden Lab, the San Francisco company behind the
concept, noted that residents had logged over a bil-
lion hours on the site and spent a billion dollars buy-
ing unreal things (mostly clothing and cars) for their
virtual personas, or avatars. One Stanford researcher
explained how he had experienced “the most sexually
charged non-sexual experience I’ve ever had” when
his avatar was propositioned by another avatar in a
“private room” (!).
Virtual communities possessed both the advan-
tages and disadvantages of anonymity. “On the
Internet, no one knows you’re a dog,” as a New
Yorkercartoon’s canine narrator remarked. A 2001
study found that half of the female Avatars in
Second Lifewere actually men. Anonymity may help
protect people who wish to articulate ideas and
explore behaviors that might generate disapproval
in “real” settings.
But the anonymity of the Internet also carries
risks. Sexual predators target teen chat rooms and
social-networking sites. Anonymity, too, allows peo-
ple to vent frustrations, prejudices, and spite without
concern for consequences. In 2006, Lori Drew, a
mother in O’Fallon, Missouri, sought to teach a les-
son to Megan Meier, a fourteen-year-old whom Drew
believed had been spreading rumors about Drew’s
daughter. Drew created a fictitious MySpace persona
of a sixteen-year-old named “Josh,” who friended
Meier, gained her confidence, and acquired her
secrets. But then “Josh” turned on Meier, advising,
“The world would be a better place without you.”
Twenty minutes later, Meier hanged herself in her
bedroom closet.
Drew was convicted of a misdemeanor for violat-
ing the terms of her MySpace agreement; but a fed-
eral judge set the ruling aside: Violation of an
Internet agreement did not constitute criminal
behavior. State legislatures in Missouri and California
immediately passed “anti-cyberbullying” laws. In
2009 Congresswoman Linda Sanchez introduced the
“Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act,” but
constitutional experts predicted that such laws would
be struck down as infringements on free speech and
privacy rights.
But what did privacy mean? During the previ-
ous four decades, Boomers and Millennials had
repeatedly debated and redefined the concepts of
private and public. Feminists had asserted a “right
to privacy,” including a right to an abortion; but
the Moral Majority had insisted on the superior
“right to life” of the fetus. Gays and lesbians had
sought freedom from government harassment; but
they also sought public acceptance through adop-
tion of same-sex marriage laws and open acknowl-
edgement of their service in the military. President
Reagan and conservatives campaigned to “get gov-
ernment off our backs” and yet they expanded the
government’s role in prosecuting behavior deemed
deviant or immoral. And if public physical spaces
were disappearing, Millennials increasingly partici-
pated, often from the solitude of a bedroom or
study, in a bogglingly public world of the Internet,
blithely posting their innermost thoughts on social
networking sites.Greying of the Boomers
On January 1, 2011, when the first Boomer turned
sixty-five, nearly one-seventh of the American popula-
tion was over sixty-five, the customary retirement
age. Demographic projections indicated that by the
time the Millennials reached sixty-five, one-fifth of
the population would be over sixty-five.
The aging of the nation’s population had seri-
ous economic implications. A substantial propor-
tion of the nation’s wealth was shifting from
economically productive purposes (educating the
young, building and maintaining infrastructure, and
creating new businesses and technology) to the less
productive task of providing health care and pen-
sions for the elderly.
Of particular concern was the viability of Social
Security, the New Deal program that provided pen-
sions for the elderly. In theory, workers and
employers paid into the Social Security Trust Fund;
when workers retired, they would draw their “sav-
ings” from the Trust Fund. But under pressure
from seniors—the highest-voting proportion of the
population—Congress increased old-age benefits.
As of 2010, the Social Security Trust Fund had
$2 trillion in assets, but the projected cost of Social
Security by 2050 exceeded $7 trillion. The differ-
ence would have to be covered by the contributions
made by working Millennials, many of whom wor-
ried that the fund would be gone by the time they
retired. A 2009 poll by the American Association of
Retired Persons (AARP) found that only 31 percent
of Americans between the ages of eighteen and
thirty-nine believe that Social Security will be avail-
able to them on retirement.