ARE WE THE SNOWFLAKE GENERATION?

If you read anything in a tabloid newspaper, you'd think that the young people of today are nothing but delicate little "snowflakes" – offended by everything, right down to the ever-rising price of avocados. 

You only have to talk to a real-life young person to know that's not the case. An entire university study has been dedicated to the idea of Generation Snowflake, and you won't be surprised to find that it's an exaggerated, over-generalised load of nonsense. 

Okay, maybe not the avocado part. C'mon, we've got to have some nice things. 

Researches from the University of Leeds' Institute for Teaching interviewed 55 undergrads as part of their study into student resilience, and had another 185 complete survey questionnaires. 

Students were asked what they thought about the snowflake generation - students who were "quick to take offence and too emotionally vulnerable to cope with views that challenge their own", and also the idea of 'trigger-warnings' - where individuals are notified of potentially distressing content before being exposed to it. 

Surprisingly, large numbers of students hadn't even heard of the term 'snowflake generation' or even 'trigger-warnings', and if they were aware of the concept, it wasn't usually in terms of education and more in terms of internet use. 

Rather than the negative associations, where 'trigger-warnings' are viewed as a form of censorship, the participating students largely agreed that the warnings allowed them to be prepared for potentially disturbing content, rather than choosing not to engage with it at all. 

Overall, the participants "were likely to say that they could see some truth in ['snowflake generation'], but that it was an unfair, sweeping label for an eclectic group of people."