Children born between 1982 and 1998 are now beginning to enter the workforce; while they’ve been called many things, I continue to use the term Generation M. [And that's not because of any personal pride in coming up with the term; rather, the characteristics that define this generation seem to have a lot of "M" about them --- mobile, multimedia, multitasking, multichannel and so on.
The Netxplorateur Forum invited me to speak to them about Generation M a few days ago; as part of my preparation, I trawled through my bookmarked items to see what had changed since mid-December, the last time I'd spoken about the subject (also in Paris, as it turned out, at Le Web 3). Which meant I had an excuse to re-read the excellent Pew Internet report on Teens and Social Media, published just before Christmas last year.
Read it if you get the chance, it's worth it.
Four things stand out for me in the report:
Generation M is faced with a vast array of choices when it comes down to communications. They really use this vast array. [We never had this choice, so we should not judge them. Things are different, and we have to live with the differences.]
A segment of Generation M, termed super communicators, use the array more extensively than others. And they defy their critics by meeting their friends in person far more often than other teens. [Putting paid to the myth that these kids spend all their time online and have no "life"]
Those that belong to social network sites are the most active content creators, the most active contributors of social objects, the most active participants in the conversations around the social objects. [These are the people that marketers would do well to understand, because they are the new marketers, the viral recommenders who are adept at creating and using social objects.]
While all this is happening, the landline continues to be important. [This is probably a self-fulfilling prophecy, restricted to the developed world, and will prove completely false in India, China, Africa and maybe even Russia and South America. Nevertheless it is of interest to me, and not just because of where I work!]
The relevant charts from the report are given below for your convenience.
15 responses so far ↓
1 Robin Blandford [ByteSurgery] » Digital Teens: Still Landlining It - Digital Media Engineer // Feb 17, 2008 at 11:20 am
[...] - JP observes in the Pew Internet report on Teens and Social Media that across all teens, the landline is still [...]
2 Balaji Sowmyanarayanan // Feb 17, 2008 at 6:26 pm
In India landline is significant for a different reason: reliability. It is common to have conversation like: “hey I can’t hear you, you voice is breaking, I’ll call you from landline…’
And the operators are pushing landline with deals by bundling landline with broadband, or mobile.
In the charts, interesting to note that email is at the bottom and ’sharing own artistic work’ is in the top.
3 Conviviendo con la Generation M » El Blog de Enrique Dans // Feb 17, 2008 at 9:24 pm
[...] entrada en Confused of Calcutta, “Learning more about Generation M“, describe a partir de un informe de Pew Internet los hábitos de la generación nacida entre [...]
4 sysrick.com » links for 2008-02-17 // Feb 17, 2008 at 11:32 pm
[...] Learning more about Generation M [...]
5 Badger Gravling // Feb 18, 2008 at 10:38 am
I think I was born before my time!
6 David // Feb 18, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Are you claiming you invented the term Generation M?
I seem to remember this being used around in the mid nineties and possibly before in a number of published university articles and its been used ever since to describe multitasking, mobile, media and any other term beginning with M.
I’d like to see a breakdown on differences between the sexes on the charts above
7 JP // Feb 18, 2008 at 6:40 pm
I think the first time I saw the term being used in public was in a Kaiser Family Foundation study sometime in 2005. I started using the term in public after that, in preference to any other terms.
it is this preference I was alluding to.
I should have come up with a better construction, I see how you thought I came up with the term. What I meant was my preference for the term in comparison to others. Like preferring The Because Effect to “abundance economics”.
8 Laurent Blondeau (Evidences) // Feb 19, 2008 at 10:58 am
Hi JP,
I guess one of the next fight is for this generation, having simplified uses of these services. And probably the aim for electronics devices is the converge effect, to avoid having several devices in our pockets ; there’s some studies about this.
Generation M today is so much “Multi-devices” too…
L.
9 Antoni Porras APSNetworKING // Feb 19, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Hello Everybody!!
I agree, the Generation M, …unfortunately there advantages and profits, but..also there are… many things bad..
‘m makinf Events of Networking, called “6 Degrees”…and a lot of people don’t use IT, Messenger, Social Networks, Skype…is incredible, but now each child use Internet, and have e-mail,… WELCOME GENERATION “M”!!!
10 Learning more about Generation M « The “Meta” Internet: The genesis of a “virtual” Silicon Valleys leveraging the power of the Internet. // Feb 20, 2008 at 10:29 pm
[...] February 17th, 2008 · 9 Comments [...]
11 Viki // Feb 23, 2008 at 2:43 am
And anothr M that goes rather well with all these afflictions is “Me” - this generation, whilst being multi tasking and multi connected is seemingly also very Me - my centric . I wonder if that stems from multi tasking albeit in a singular by my self environmnet, rather than a group and or collective, inclusive environment that we grew up in ? It is not an uncommon sight to see two people, sitting at a coffee shop, supposedly to catch up with each other, but each on their mobile gadgets, mostly voice calls or sms’ing someone else.
12 Recent Links on Ma.gnolia at Fast Wonder Blog // Feb 23, 2008 at 8:00 am
[...] Learning more about Generation M | confused of calcutta [...]
13 Geração M « // Feb 26, 2008 at 1:16 am
[...] na necessidade de percebermos as formas como eles comunicam. Vale a pena dar uma vista de olhos aqui e [...]
14 Talkin bout my generation « tejiendo redes // Feb 29, 2008 at 10:13 pm
[...] Talkin bout my generation Publicado el Febrero 29, 2008 por maccur A la generación nacida entre los años 1982 y 1998 se la llama Generación M y yo que nacà en el 87 soy parte de ella. La M viene de varias caracterÃsticas que empiezan con esa letra: mobile, multimedia, multitasking, multichannel. Algunos de esta generación son llamados los super comunicadores por que utilizan con mucho fervor todos los canales de comunicación pero, a la vez, rompen con el mito de que no tienen vida offline porque ven a sus amigos más de la media. VÃa edans a partir de Confused of Calcutta. [...]
15 Generació M? | Sin Proyecto // Jul 16, 2008 at 6:54 pm
[...] Podreu llegir la notícia original a la web de confused of calcutta. [...]
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