3 Basic Life Skills Every Millennial Learned By The Age Of 12
NadyaEugene | Shutterstock Millennials helped chart our digital social territory. Having gained the ability to use paper and pen at a young age, they went on to program the code that radically influences our social sphere to this day.
Parents of Millennials may not have had the tech-savvy of their kids, but they had the desire to own the technology. So having Millennial kids around had an added benefit. By 12, most Millennial kids who had access to technology were socially primed to take control of all the household digital advances. Long before the days of AI-generated 24-hour online tech support chatbots, we just called in the local Millennial kid to figure out how to set an Away Message on AIM Messenger — if you know, you know.
Here are 3 basic life skills every Millennial learned by the age of 12:
1. How to get around using a real map, not GPS
simona pilolla 2 via Shutterstock
One of my relatives worked for Rand McNally, so I had my choice of maps, and I loved looking at them and imagining myself taking road trips all over the US. When I discovered that gas stations gave away free maps, I would go inside when my dad paid for the gas and politely ask for one. They looked at me funny since I wasn't old enough to drive, but they kindly gave me one every time.
I was like the Jack Kerouac of maps. I'd pick a place, follow a road with my finger, and imagine what it would be like to go there. Maps represented possibility and freedom to me. Today's kids seldom know the feeling of tracing routes across paper while imagining magical adventures, as Millennials were one of the last generations to regularly use paper maps. Yes, GPS is more efficient, but maps let me dream about the sights I'd see, the people I'd meet, and the freedom I'd find!
2. How to record on TiVo
JLco Julia Amaral via Shutterstock
Millennials often became the household technology experts by age 12, even when that technology was a VCR that constantly flashed 12:00 am. When parents needed to record something (remember TiVo?), copy a VHS tape, or figure out why the TV was showing static, they often relied on their 12-year-old to fix it.
Millennials learned technology not because they were born "with a smartphone in their hand" but because they were the bridge generation, young enough to be fearless, old enough to learn rapidly. This early role as tech support shaped how Millennials approach problems. They just pushed buttons logically until something worked. That's how my Millennial partner still does it, while I quiver with anxiety that I'll blow up the machine!
By 12, my partner had fully developed the confidence to tackle any new device without reading instructions, a skill that would serve Millennials well as technology exploded around them. In this sense, Millennials are the generation that bridged the analog and digital worlds and became the first off-the-books form of tech support.
3. How to connect to the Internet through a dial-up
Monkey Business Images via Shutterstock
Millennials were the first generation to grow up with the Internet. It was truly life-changing. By age 12, many were experts in computer connectivity. They learned to troubleshoot dial-up connections, create AOL Instant Messenger screen names, laugh at modem sounds, and obsess over connection speeds.
What really hooked them was digital gaming. Whether it was Nintendo, PlayStation, or early PC games like The Sims, gaming taught Millennials how to navigate digital worlds, solve complex problems, and collaborate online. Gaming wasn't just entertainment; it was their introduction to the dopamine feedback loops that would later define social media addiction, along with other online, pleasure-seeking compulsions.
Millennials absorbed and helped shape the invention of digital literacy. They quickly adapted to search engines and communicated through text-based platforms before images were widely shared online or smartphones existed.
This gave Millennial kids a huge advantage over their elders, though more than a few grew to resent being the household tech expert who was constantly untangling their parents' computing mistakes. Their early adaptation gave them an intuitive understanding of technology that has shaped the evolution and trajectories of today's Internet.
Dr. Gloria Brame, Ph.D., is a board-certified therapist who focuses on helping adults overcome both functional and emotional problems from a progressive perspective.
