One of the common themes that I heard from Web 2.0 vendors whom I visited last week was this: today’s generation uses the Internet differently, and has different expectations of technology, than the older generation. This led to such pronouncements as: college-age and high-school kids have never seen Microsoft Outlook, and would be horrified by it; email is “broken” as far as this generation is concerned; this generation needs Internet tools that tell them what their friends are doing today, not what tasks they themselves should be doing.

Well, all of this is very interesting, and it made me realize that aside from glib, superficial generalizations, I don’t really know very much about what’s being referred to as “Generation Y.” Gen-Y is loosely defined as the people born after 1982, and it’s not only the first generation to have grown up on the Internet/Web, but also the first generation to grow up with the following technologies (this list comes from the Wikipedia article on Gen-Y):

• PCs with modern operating systems and mouse-based point-and-click GUIs, requiring fewer keyboard skills. (late 1980’s and onwards)
• Sophisticated computer graphics in many video games, animated movies and television shows. (late 80’s to mid 90’s) (and the related non-keyboard interfaces)
• Cellular phones. (late ’90s and onwards)
• Instant messaging. (2000’s)
• DVDs (1997 and onwards)
• Digital Audio Players (MP3 players), especially Apple Computer iPods (2001 and onwards)
• Tivo and other such DVR devices. ( and onwards)
• HDTV (2001 and onwards)
• Broadband Internet (2000 and onwards)
• Digital Cameras (early 2000’s)
• Standardized testing
• Robotic and digital pets ( 1990’s-Tamagotchi, Furby/2000’s-Robosapien (V2,V3), Aibo, Poo-chi, i-Dog, Pixel Chix, Neopets, Webkinz)
• Camera phones (early 2000’s)

I’m not a sociologist or expert on generational cultures, so I won’t pontificate in detail about what this is likely to mean for high-tech companies trying to anticipate what products and services will appeal to Gen-Y, as well as Gen-Z following in its footsteps (remember, kids all over the world are being exposed to several of the gadgets in the list above, from early childhood).

What I can suggest is that those of us who work in high-tech companies, and especially those of us who develop products and systems that will be used by the Gen-Y and Gen-Z workforce, should be devoting some of our time to reviewing the fairly rich set of resources on the subject. Here are just a few items from a quick Google search on Generation Y:

• the Wikipedia article mentioned above (with several links and cross-references)
• “What Does Generation Y Want?”
• A long article, with lots of tables, links, and cross-references, from Answers.com
• An October 2003 article entitled, “Millenials Surfing: Generation Y Online“
• A book entitled Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation, by Neil Howe and William Strauss (authors of a 1997 book, The Fourth Turning, which so impressed me that I sent copies to every member of my extended family)

No doubt you can find additional references with a few judicious searches on the Internet. Remember: the first wave of Gen-Y is already out in the work force, carrying out the entry-level jobs that our companies depend on to be efficient, competitive, and profitable in the global marketplace. The more we understand about how they think, what they want, and what assumptions they make when using technology, the better off we’ll all be.