The key answer of exercise 1

Sam is generation Y: she was born in the 1990s and was brought up in a world of social media, technological progress and globalisation. Sam has a university education, a good standard of living and a busy social life. But she is miserable. According to recent research, unhappiness is felt more often by this generation than the previous one.

Some of the reasons may seem obvious: for example unemployment and expensive housing are causing pressure for people. Nowadays each graduate-level job (meaning it requires university education) is chased by over 100 people and millennials are much less likely to have their own home than earlier generations. However these are not new problems, such issues have been faced by young people for a long time.

Instead some alternative reasons have been suggested by recent research: the first is that generation Y expect more from life than their parents did and are disappointed when they don't get it.

While generation X hoped for a secure job, generation Y expect the job to be interesting as well as secure. Secondly, generation Y have been told to believe in themselves, that they deserve success quickly. In the past, years of hard work was seen as normal while generation Y believe they should have a management level job within a few years of starting work.

It is these differences between expectation and real life that make generation Y less happy than their parents. So how can someone in the Y generation be happy? The best way is not to give up dreams but to understand that no job is perfect and any kind of success will probably only be achieved by years of hard work.