Study: Most Young People Balk At 'Millennial' Label

(CBS SF) -- Millennials once again prove that nobody puts them in a corner, especially if it's labeled "Millennial."

A new Pew survey suggests that out of the 75 million Americans born between 1981 and 1997, only 40 percent say the term Millennial describes them. About a third of them born in the early to mid-1980s consider themselves part of the next older cohort of Americans born between 1965 and 1980, or "Generation X." 

The "Boomer" generation, people aged 51 to 59, were most likely to identify with their generation.

Meanwhile, the oldest cohort of Americans is by far the least likely to embrace a generational label. Less than 20 percent of those ages 70 to 87  actually see themselves as part of the "Silent Generation," the term applied to people born from the mid 1920s to early 1940s.

Generational names are largely the constructs of social scientists and market researchers, which may be why Millennials who are largely associated with lazy, self-absorbed and non-conforming traits, are trying to shake off the category altogether.

So much that one techie "Millennial" created a Google Chrome browser extension to replace every use of the word "Millennial" with the phrase "snake people."

Nicole Jones is a digital producer for CBS San Francisco. Follow her musings @nicjonestweets