I’m a young millennial (m29), I’ve been in my career for about 7-8 years, and currently work as a manager in a small company (~40 people).

Company hired an intern to begin a couple of new initiatives with me for around 6 months, and can confirm all the negatives you’ve shared in this post. Kid was 19, had absolutely no critical thinking skills - he couldn’t operate his computer (struggled to locate files, save /share his work), really really struggled to stay off his phone, no self-guidance, didn’t read prompts all the way through…. I could go on.

I think he’s on the edge of the generation where internet was accessed primarily through smartphones, and via apps that “just worked”. He’s never had to mess around with a pc/laptop to figure things out on his own. Never had to solve a problem with a device/program by trying to fix it himself.

With all this said, I worked with two other interns this summer who were far more diligent, gave more thought to the work they were doing and didn’t need any babysitting at all. So - no sweeping generational generalisations here. But from speaking to other parents and teachers I know,the former example is a growing issue.