Titan Company’s Paradox Panel has come out with a paper India’s Millennial Paradox and What it Means for the Way they Consume . The paradox highlighted the millennials’ (those aged 18-34) obsession with self-expression, individual choice and opinion, while at the same time exhibiting an unprecedented desire to share and belong to some form of community, both in the professional and personal context. It calls this ‘collective individualism’. The analysis has been compiled by experts from research, marketing, advertising and academia.

The key findings were that men, regardless of age, tend towards individualism and women towards collectivism. However, the younger they are, the greater the tendency to lean towards collective individualism. Thirty-six per cent of men said they do not share any brand experience, good or bad, through social media, but 51 per cent of millennials said they do. Only 18 per cent of women share brand experience. Twenty-one per cent of people aged between 35 and 50 said they always shared their brand experiences via social media. Sixty per cent of women rarely or never resort to social media when it comes to buying something, while 49 per cent of all men do.

For life-changing moments, there is a contradicting trend where a big chunk, 33 per cent of millennials, were not willing to share life-changing, personal moments via social media.

Quite a chunk of millennials have role models - 42 per cent of them are inspired by public figures. So do 40 per cent of women.

The survey was conducted online among 758 respondents. In the age group of 18 to 34, there were 476 of them, while those between 35 and 50 numbered 260. Twenty-two were aged 51 and above.

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