The Greatest Generation and the Silent Generation were the children and young adults of the Depression. They either fought in or supported the troops in World War II. These people experienced the advent of blues and jazz, listening to that music on newly evolving technologies like phonographs and radios. They were born into a world without television or microwave ovens. The formative moments in their lives were the Titanic disaster in 1912, Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight in 1927, the stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression, and World Wars I and II. These were the first generations to ride in automobiles, the first to have universal access to electricity and fully plumbed homes, and the first to be able to communicate in real time via telephone.
Those in the Baby Boomer generation were born during the post-WWII “baby boom.” In their youth, they were typically associated with a rejection of the more traditional or “conservative” values of their parents. They are credited with generating both social upheaval and liberal change in the United States and throughout the Western world, resulting in a liberal versus conservative political and cultural divide that lives on to this day. Baby boomers listened to Elvis, the Beatles, and Motown on transistor radios and 45 rpm records. They grew up glued to television, enthralled by the Ed Sullivan Show, the Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island, the Twilight Zone, and, of course, the Wonderful World of Disney. Early baby boomers (born 1946–1955) list the Cuban Missile Crisis; the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King; the first moon landing; Roe versus Wade; the Vietnam war; Woodstock; and the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay rights movements as formative events in their lives. Later boomers (born 1956–1964) were more conscious of Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis, raging inflation, gasoline shortages, and, of course, disco.2
Generation X (Gen X) includes people born between 1965 and 1982. They are often characterized as a “slacker” generation, though studies show their values and work ethic are not so different from those of their parents. This generation listened to pop, punk, alternative, rap, and hip hop music on their boom boxes and Sony Walkmans. Their lives were shaped by the 1973 oil crisis and subsequent years of worldwide financial recession, the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of the Cold War. They played Donkey Kong and Mario Bros on increasingly sophisticated video gaming platforms. They experienced the earliest days of cable TV and were particularly influenced by Sesame Street and Music Television (MTV), the first network aimed specifically at them as a demographic. Gen Xers were also profoundly influenced by the AIDS epidemic, crack cocaine, and designer drug abuse. Some Gen Xers did not use personal computers and the Internet until early adulthood, while others had these technologies available to them earlier.
| The “Digital Native” Generations, Born 1983 to Now | |
| Generation | Dates Born |
| Generation Y | 1983–2000 |
| Generation Z | 2001–present |
Generation Y (Gen Y), also known as “Millennials,” are more familiar with interactive communication, media, and digital technologies than prior generations. Gen Ys listen to hip hop, rap, indie (independent), post-grunge, electronic, techno, dubstep, R&B (rhythm and blues), rock, hardcore punk, metalcore, teen pop, pop punk, Eurodance, K-pop (Korean pop), C-pop (Chinese pop), J-pop (Japanese pop), Bhangra, and international music on iPods and other MP3 devices. They get their news online rather than reading a newspaper or watching the evening news. Gen Y is sometimes accused of suffering from “Peter Pan Syndrome,” delaying rites of passage into adulthood (such as getting a job and moving out of the house).3 Defining moments for Gen Ys include the tragedy of 9/11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the arrival of social media (Facebook and MySpace), the smartphone, the 2007–2008 global financial crisis, and the election of Barack Obama as United States president. However, the single most defining characteristic of Gen Y is that its members use digital technology as a primary resource for communication, interaction, and information gathering. They do so more often, more fluidly, and for far more purposes than previous generations.
Generation Z (Gen Z), also known as the “Always On” generation, have never known a world without modern high-speed Internet. Engaging with each other via social media is as natural to Gen Zs as breathing. They were born into a world of multitasking. The neurobiological, developmental, social, and educational impact of this way of living from birth onward is as yet unknown. In many ways, much like the baby boomers of yore, Gen Z is a true social experiment in the making because we really don’t know what Gen Zs will look like in the future or how they will meet, work, or mate.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
A technology (or anything else) is obsolete when it is no longer used. Most often, obsolete means something is out of date and needs to be replaced by something newer and more efficient—or at least a bit shinier. Obsolete items are outmoded, outdated, archaic, antiquated, passé, and unfashionable. And nowhere does obsolescence arrive more quickly than in the world of communication technology.
Consider, for example, the telephone. Brent, a member of the Silent Generation, recalls that as a boy in upstate Washington he had to crank the phone to reach the operator. When Brent asked the operator to connect him with his friend Jimmy, the operator might say, “I think Jimmy is over at Bobby’s house today. Let me check there,” and more often than not she was right.
Brent’s friend Scott, born on the cusp of the Baby Boomer and X Generations, used to dial his friend Michael’s house when he wanted someone to play with. And if Michael wasn’t home, so be it. Scott would have to call back later, leave a message with Michael’s parents, or hop on his bicycle and pedal around the neighborhood to look for his friend.
Today when Scott’s Gen Y nephew Matt wants to call his friend Marshall, he pulls his phone out of his pocket and simply says, “Call Marshall.” The phone does as instructed, and no matter where Marshall is—he could be three states away, vacationing with his family—the call finds Marshall and he picks up. Matt has never spoken to a switchboard operator, never used a rotary dial, never used a pay phone, never called collect, never checked his answering machine, never been paged, and never paid for a long distance call. He has no need to remember a phone number and in fact he’s never actually heard a phone “ring.” The moniker “Ma Bell” means nothing to him. If he time traveled to Brent’s childhood home in upstate Washington, he would have no idea that the strange wooden box hanging on the wall was a telephone. That’s a mere nanobyte of how much technology has changed in just sixty years.
Obsolete or Rapidly Becoming Obsolete Communications/Entertainment Technologies
•phonographs
•8-tracks, cassettes, and reel-to-reel tapes
•transistor radios and boom boxes
•laser discs
•floppy discs
•analogue recordings and recording devices (tape)
•stereo receivers, tape decks, and turntables
•dictation machines
•Walkman and Discman personal stereos
•HAM and CB radios
