Clingy Millennials Are Texting Their Moms

By Kate Dries | July 31, 2013 | 7:00pm

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Not content to leave all those trend pieces to its rival the Grey Lady, the Wall Street Journal joins us this week to let the world know that millennials like to text and Gchat with their moms, especially while at work. Click out of this box and get over to your email to send this link to the woman that birthed you ASAP!

The Journal, which somehow missed the memo that this particular trend piece and every piece about millennials has already been written multiple times – to the point of parody – uses almost 1,500 words to introduce us to, two young men and two young women, all in their twenties; two licensed therapists and two mothers. The entire thing reads as though it was written for the parents of said millennials (or maybe the parents of those parents) to explain to them what is happening when they communicate with their own children, which makes sense, given that that’s exactly who is reading the Wall Street Journal:

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On computer and cellphone screens in workplaces across the country, many young employees keep up daylong conversations with their parents, sharing what the weather is like, what they ate for lunch or what the boss just said about their work.

The running chatter with Mom or Dad is possible for young adults in their 20s and early 30s because they are the first generation to hit the workforce with tech-savvy parents. Most baby boomers are using the same smartphones, tablets and laptops as their children, making daily communication with Mom easier and more open-ended than ever.

Do you know how Gchat works? Because we’re about to explain it to you:

Chatting, or texting, is a subtler way to stay in touch from a cubicle than a phone call. As long as the computer’s sound effects are on mute, chatting is silent. It is as simple as opening a Web application such as Google Hangout (the chat interface is known as “Gchat”), Facebook or iChat—all free—and selecting someone from a list of online contacts. In most applications, a chat window will pop up on screen. Depending on where you work and how far away from the boss you sit, you may choose to minimize or hide it.

Here are some fun facts about how technology has changed:

Messaging—instead of calling—their parents makes sense since, as a group, millennials aren’t big on talking on the phone. In recent years, customers in their 20s and 30s have gravitated to prepaid wireless plans offering minimal voice minutes but unlimited texting and data, cellphone-service providers say.

………………………………….guys I don’t know:

Regular chats, whether on the phone, by text or online, can bring parents and adult children closer, bridging long distances and keeping both sides up to speed. Too much, though, can get in the way of work, relationships and independent decision-making on both ends.

That being said, this is a female parent specific trend:

Fathers, of course, text and chat with their adult children. But most of millennials’ workplace chatting seems to occur with their mothers

Time for the public service announcement:

Family therapists say it’s important to establish boundaries.

Many apologies to anyone whose mother read this piece and now knows exactly how to bug them on Gchat.

Mom, Stop Calling, I’ll Text You All Day [WSJ]

Image via Michael Kowalski/Shutterstock