What Generation are you? If you were Born Between 1946-1964 you’re what’s called a “Baby Boomer”.  If you were born between 1964-1982 your referred to as “Generation X” .And if, like me, you were born between 1982-1994 your what’s referred to as “Generation Y”. Apparently 1984 was a good year! Not only is it my birth year but almost every adult that I’ve come in contact with has had something significant happen in 1984. They usually start off with:

“Yeah that was one of the best years of my life right when I graduated from college……”

             At this point I usually chime in and say “1984 that was when I was born” For some reason I get some type of sick satisfaction in seeing their face drop when I say that. I guess I remind them of how old they are. But enough about my cruel sense of humor and on to some interesting facts I’ve found out about my generation!

Spending Habits

It appears that we are a new kind of generation all together when it comes to how we spend. Marketing companies at one point in time were baffled about how to get us to buy their products. The old tricks that they’ve been using for years weren’t working they needed to come up with something new. We represent more than 70 million consumers in the United States. We earn a total annual income of about $211 billion and spend approximately $172 billion per year.  We strongly influence many adult consumers buying choices no wonder that we also face a greater degree of direct corporate marketing than any other generation in history. I can definitely attest to this. I seem to be more inclined to buy than save. I’ll start to save a little bit but then a new gadget will be introduced into the market and all thoughts of saving goes out the door.

Work Habits

Gone are the days when a person works at the same job for 10 or 20 years. Since I started working in 1999 I’ve held about 7 jobs that’s about one job per year. I know that seems high but I have a bad tendency of leaving a job if I’m not happy. I’ve never been able to understand why a person will do something for years that they don’t like in an environment that they hate. Apparently all my Generation Y brethren feel the same way. We tend to move jobs more often than ever before! We know our value in the work place and will leave if we don’t feel that we are appreciated. We are not loyal to any particular employer so you’ll never hear us say to our boss “Mr Johnson our competition offered me more money but I’m loyal to you and what this company stands for so I turned them down” Not only will we accept the job offer in a heartbeat but we’ll leave right on the spot not even bothering with a 2 weeks notice. We also insist on working in a stimulating job environment this one is key. How can you be productive if you’re miserable? In my opinion you can’t be productive in a bad environment so move on to a better place.

Technology and Social Habits

It may seem odd that I lumped these two together but our social life is dependant on technology. You can’t have one without the other I’ll explain why.

Gen Y is very computer savvy we’ve been using the internet practically all our lives. I was first introduced to a MAC in 1993 when I was in 3^rd grade and I’ve been using computers ever since.

Wikipedia (probably not the most accurate source of information but it works for me) quoted that “The rise of instant communication technologies made possible through use of the internet, such as email, texting, and IM and new media used through websites like YouTube and social networking sites, may explain Generation Y’s reputation for being peer oriented and for seeking instant gratification.” I couldn’t agree more!   Were constantly communicating with friends and people that we meet online and we do it instantly through IM or email. Our social circles include peoples whose emails we have or people who are on our Facebook and Myspace accounts! These are people that we’ve never seen in real life. How can a friend be someone you’ve never met? We used to call those strangers but not anymore. We sometimes have more virtual friends than real friends. We more connected with our friends and family than ever before so as I mentioned before our social life is dependant on technology. We go crazy when we leave our cell phones home. Were so used to being instantly connected that when we leave our cell phones home we feel like were out of the loop or that we’re missing out on something or. Sometimes I think were a little too connected. My friend hadn’t signed on to her MSN Live account all day so I called her to see if she was all right she was fine but we’re always so connected that when a person isn’t connected we think something terrible has happened to them! 

In their recent book, Connecting to the Net.Generation: What Higher Education Professionals Need to Know About Today’s Students, Reynol Junco and Jeanna Mastrodicasa^[16] found that in a survey of 7,705 college students (Gen Y’s)  in the US:

• 97% own a computer
• 97% have downloaded music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 94% own a cell phone
• 76% use instant messaging and social networking sites
• 75% of college students have a Facebook account^[17]
• 60% own some type of portable music and/or video device such as an iPod
• 49% regularly download music and other media using peer-to-peer file sharing
• 34% use websites as their primary source of news
• 28% author a blog and 44% read blogs
• 15% of IM users are logged on 24 hours a day/7 days a week

Apparently we know our technology and were not afraid to use it!

We truly are a generation that’s capable of so many things I can’t wait to see how we shape history!

Addition Sources:

http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_07/b3616001.htm