The Y Generation

Also known as the “Y generation” or “GenYers” (people born between 1990 and 1999).

AKA: the digital natives (born with digital devices).

Books: Born Digital, Dancing with digital natives, teaching digital natives.

When I am not a digital native: I am a digital immigrant (generation X).

But a language learned later in life, scientists tell us, goes into a different part of the brain.

Generation X (people born between 1960 and 1979).

The term “X generation” was first used in 1964 study of British youth.

The 1964 study revealed a generation of teenagers who “sleep together before they are married, were not taught to believe in God as ‘much’, dislike the Queen, and don’t respect their parents”.

Their parents were part of the “baby boom generation”.

AKA “baby boomers” (people born between 1945 and 1959).

Today, they form the “elderly” or “digital dinosaur”.

So in 2011, we have 3 generations living and sometimes working together:

- 16 millions: baby boomers,

- 12 millions: X,

- 13 millions: Y.

 Baby boomers era: continuous prosperity, television as the N°1 mass media, mass consumption (rise of advertising), Vietnam war, Cold war, the space race, career-minded (mostly for men), women: home and family first (Women’s liberation Movement in 1968).

 Generation X era: oil crisis (1973), rise of unemployment, AIDS, single parent homes/high divorce, Berlin wall/end of cold war, global economy (Mac Donald’s), MTS,