Green Tea Ice Cream

I’m still thinking about the thumbnail sketch given at yesterday’s Biennial session of millennials (I forgot - we’re past Generation Y and into Generation C) and the summary of their stereotypical traits as

• wanting immediate feedback
• being all about ‘me me me…’
• easily distracted
• (or more positively) low boredom threshold
• highly entrepreneurial
• highly digitally connected (but not to the extent everyone assumes)
• victims of ‘helicopter parenting‘

and so on. It occurred to me yesterday that aside from issues I have with defining a generation by age, that a lot of this thinking gives too much credit altogether to what goes on in the past (upbringing, contrast with previous generation) and too much privilege to a particularly affluent set of cultural constructions (though there are strong arguments as to why one might see the above as a distinct phenomenon. And I do have to mention that post by danah boyd again). The problem with generalisations is our tendency to leave out the uncomfortable bits - could we conclude that ‘fat’ belongs in the stereotype? Or is Generation C simply a consequence of being the most chemically constructed generation to date? Maybe Generation C has less to do with a digital upbringing and more to do with e-additives?

Actually, I think the most influential aspect is the digital lifestyle - to a large extent, you are what you do even though the experience of being created or constructed by your activities is the most unaccessible or unmeasurable of all.  What we have to remember is that age in itself might be the least of the many contributing factors to the demographic grouped as Generation C.  Interestingly, Trendwatch (given credit for coining the term on Wikipedia) don’t actually use age as a primary defining factor.  They define Generation C as Generation ‘Content’.  Which if you remember that the average active European Second Lifer (for example) is 33, throws this ‘generations’ demographic wide open in all directions.

So, to answer my initial question - yes.  But anyone can join.  And everyone is a digital immigrant - not even the millennial generation were born holding a mobile and twittering the experience.

(P.S. There’s a light-hearted test to find out if you have on Brazen Careerist.  I’m a little sceptical about the results but it’s kind of comforting…)