At the same time, the authors recognize the difficulty in completely disentangling the multiple reasons that generations differ. At any given moment in time, age group differences can be the result of three overlapping processes, says the report.

• Life cycle effects. Young people may be different from older people today, but they may become more like once they themselves age
• Period effects. Major events affect all age groups simultaneously, but the degree of impact may differ according to where people are located in the life cycle
• Cohort effects. Period events and trends often leave a particularly deep impression on young adults that stay with them as they move through their life cycle

The authors concede that don't know which formative experiences the Millennials will carry forward, but hope that the findings present them as they are today, and, consequentially, what America might be like tomorrow.

Millennials, the American teens and twenty-somethings who are making the passage into adulthood at the start of a new millennium, are confident, self-expressive, liberal, upbeat and open to change. They are more ethnically and racially diverse than older adults. They're less religious, less likely to have served in the military, and are on track to become the most educated generation in American history.

Their entry into careers and first jobs has been badly set back by the Great Recession, but they are more upbeat than their elders about their own economic futures as well as about the overall state of the nation.
Millennials are history's first "always connected" generation. Steeped in digital technology and social media, they treat their multi-tasking hand-held gadgets almost like a body part. More than eight-in-ten say they sleep with a cell phone by the bed, and nearly two-thirds admit to texting while driving.

Three-quarters have created a profile on a social networking site. In addition:

• One-in-five have posted a video of themselves online
• Nearly four-in-ten have a tattoo (about half of those with tattoos have two to five and 18% have six or more)
• Nearly one-in-four have a piercing in some place other than an earlobe, about six times the share of older adults who've done this
• Most Millennials have placed privacy boundaries on their social media profiles 70% say their tattoos are hidden beneath clothing

At the moment, 37% of 18- to 29-year-olds are unemployed or out of the workforce, the highest share among this age group in more than three decades. Research shows that young people who graduate from college in a bad economy typically suffer long-term consequences, with effects on their careers and earnings that can linger as long as 15 years.

Only about six-in-ten were raised by both parents, a smaller share than was the case with older generations. In weighing their own life priorities, Millennials (like older adults) place parenthood and marriage far above career and financial success. But 21% Millennials are married now, half the share of their parents' generation at the same stage of life. 34% are parents, according to the survey. The study estimates that in 2006, more than a third of 18-to-29 year old women who gave birth were unmarried, a far higher share than was the case in earlier generations. Yet they express their priorities:

Millennials cast a wary eye on human nature. Two-thirds say "you can't be too careful" when dealing with people. Yet they are less skeptical than their elders of government. More so than other generations, they believe government should do more to solve problems.

They are the least overtly religious American generation in modern times. One-in-four are unaffiliated with any religion, far more than the share of older adults when they were ages 18 to 29. Yet Millennials pray about as often as their elders did in their own youth.

Millennials are on course to become the most educated generation in American history, accelerated in recent years by the millions of 20-somethings enrolling in graduate schools, colleges or community colleges in part because they can't find a job. Among 18-to-24 year olds 39.6% were enrolled in college as of 2008, according to census data.

Millennials report having had fewer spats with mom or dad than older adults say they had with their own parents when they were growing up. About one-in-six older Millennials (ages 22 and older) say they've "boomeranged" back to a parent's home because of the recession.

A majority say that the older generation is superior to the younger generation when it comes to moral values and work ethic. And, more than six-in-ten say that families have a responsibility to have an elderly parent come live with them if that parent wants to. By contrast, fewer than four-in-ten adults ages 60 and older agree that this is a family responsibility.

Just 2% of males Millennials are military veterans. At a comparable stage of their life cycle, 6% of Gen Xer men, 13% of Baby Boomer men and 24% of Silent men were veterans.

Politically, Millennials were among Barack Obama's strongest supporters in 2008, backing him for president by more than a two-to-one ratio (66% to 32%), but about half of Millennials say the president has failed to change the way Washington works. Of those who say this, three-in-ten blame Obama himself, while more than half blame his political opponents and special interests.

Millennials remain the most likely of any generation to self-identify as liberals, and are less supportive than their elders of an assertive national security policy and more supportive of a progressive domestic social agenda. Though they are still more likely than any other age group to identify as Democrats, by early 2010, their support for Obama and the Democrats has receded, as evidenced both by survey data and by their low level of participation in recent off-year and special elections.

Most Millennials (61%) in the January, 2010 survey say their generation has a unique and distinctive identity. That doesn't make them unusual, however. Roughly two-thirds of Silents, nearly six-in-ten Boomers and about half of Xers feel the same way about their generation:

Finally, review the description of each "Labeled Generation" in order to put the responses in perspective. Generational names are the handiwork of popular culture, says the report. Some are drawn from a historic event; others from rapid social or demographic change; others from a big turn in the calendar: 

• The Millennial generation falls into the third category. The label refers those born after 1980, the first generation to come of age in the new millennium.
• Generation X covers people born from 1965 through 1980. The label long ago overtook the first name affixed to this generation: the Baby Bust. Xers are often depicted as savvy, entrepreneurial loners.
• The Baby Boomer label is drawn from the great spike in fertility that began in 1946, right after the end of World War II, and ended almost as abruptly in 1964, around the time the birth control pill went on the market. It's a classic example of a demography-driven name.
• The Silent generation describes adults born from 1928 through 1945. Children of the Great Depression and World War II, their "Silent" label refers to their conformist and civic instincts. It also makes for a nice contrast with the noisy ways of the anti-establishment Boomers.
• The Greatest Generation (those born before 1928) "saved the world" when it was young, in the memorable phrase of Ronald Reagan. It's the generation that fought and won World War II.

To see the complete report with charts, and to access the PDF file, please visit PEW here.