Paper Napkin
Though it was their grandparents that gave rise to modern American consumer culture, millennials often get dinged for being too obsessed with having the latest and greatest gadgets. While it's true that Apple and other smartphone makers have developed nearly irresistible cults of personality around their brands, there's evidence that millennials are just as quick to drop the essential items of generations gone by if it suits their needs.
And it's becoming overwhelmingly clear that paper napkins no longer do.
The most pressing case for the youth of America's lack of interest in paper napkins comes from a Mintel survey on household paper product usage for Feb. 2016. Just 56 percent indicated that they'd even purchased paper napkins over the last six months. It's not as if millennials are wiping their dirty hands on their ripped designer jeans, though. No, they've found a replacement for their parents' and grandparents' disposable napkins, as 86 percent reported buying paper towels during the same period.
Is this a failure of the paper napkin industry to keep up with the times? Or, as Apartment Therapy writer Nancy Mitchell told The Washington Post, is the long, slow death of the disposable napkin more of an indication that the next generation of consumers no longer have need of them
