Love of Money

Ask young people about their generation's top life goals and the answer is clear and resounding: They want to be rich and famous. Eighty-one percent of 18- to 25-year-olds surveyed in a Pew Research Center poll released today said getting rich is their generation's most important or second-most-important life goal; 51% said the same about being famous. "We're seeing the common person become famous for being themselves," says David Morrison of the Philadelphia-based research firm Twentysomething Inc. MTV and reality TV are in large part fueling these youthful desires, he says. The results of the Pew telephone survey of 579 young people describe the "millennial" generation (also known as Gen Y), who were born since the early 1980s and were raised in the glow and glare of their parents' omnipresent cameras. While experts say it's natural for humans to seek attention, these young people revel in it.

• JJ Commentary: How sad. With society not giving them any moral leadership, the god of mammon has taken this generation over. With the “love of money” being the “root of all kinds of evil” (1Timothy 6:10), pity them and us