About Generation Y

by April 26, 2006

A few interesting notes about the next generation of users, consumers, and wranglers:

“Millennials (alternately known as gen-Y, echo boomers, Net gen, and even "generation why," because they never stop questioning the status quo), thanks to their overinvolved boomer parents, have been coddled and pumped up to believe they can achieve anything. Immersion in PCs, video games, email, the Internet, and cell phones for most of their lives has changed their thought patterns and may also have actually changed how their brains developed physiologically. These folks want feedback daily, not annually.

Marriott International decided it had to change its approach to training in recognition of millennials' multisensory, rapid-fire style of information consumption. They have exacerbated the need for brevity -on-demand, short sound bites.” -Scenes from the Culture Clash

“It's learning to be - a natural byproduct of adjusting to a new culture - as opposed to learning about. Where traditional learning is based on the execution of carefully graded challenges, accidental learning relies on failure. Virtual environments are safe platforms for trial and error. The chance of failure is high, but the cost is low and the lessons learned are immediate.” - You Play World of Warcraft? You're Hired!

“Now an entire generation has grown up with a different set of games than any before it. The last thing they do is read the manual. Instead, they pick up the controller and start mashing buttons to see what happens. This isn't a random process; it's the essence of the scientific method and it's a fundamentally different take on problem-solving than the linear, read-the-manual-first approach of their parents. The fact that they are learning in a totally new way - means they'll treat the world as a place for creation, not consumption.” – Dream Machines

“More than half of online teens have created content for the Internet.” - Teen Content Creators and Consumers