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 ^{(it's beta!)}

Define your generation. Some researchers call you Millenials, Generation ME, the Dumbest Generation, iGen…are any of these appropriate? Offensive? What characteristics do people of your generation share? What do people of your generation love to do or value that other generations might not? What are the biggest challenges facing your generation right now?

I prefer the name ‘netbabies’ for our generation (hey! AE got something right!). ‘Millennials’ is too boring and generic a name. Generation ME makes me think of the Millennium Edition of Windows, which was just all around a pretty sucky OS by Microsoft. The Dumbest Generation is rather offensive but I can understand why one would consider us that (though certainly we have to place some blame on the generation before us for allowing us our inadequacies). I would like to consider myself outside of that stereotype so dutifully named but as a certain parent likes to remind me, I’m going to be an English major when I could go into Biochemistry, Pre-Med, Neuroscience, Astrophysics or whatever and really change the world…

The iGen simply gives too much credit to Apple.

The reason I like (read:stole) the name ‘netbabies’ is because our generation is the first to grow up ‘fully wired’. We have cable television, internet that runs at the speed of light, iPods, cell phones, blogs, all from a relatively young age, some of us possess these from birth. We run on an intertwined web of electronics, addicted to the power of connections. We network faster and better than ever before, thanks to webcams, facebook and cell phones. We have friends we have never seen in places we have never been. We can instantly communicate with the rest of the world from almost anywhere in the world. We are becoming more secular, more globalized and both more and less diverse. The biggest challenges we face come from old-timers, generations Next and X. Things that seem self-evident and immutable to us are political playthings, ideas like net neutrality or file sharing. Most of these challenges will not be overcome until the old-timers start thinking like now-timers, until the men and women only a decade or two older than us recognize and admit the power inherent within the connected. A public created of men and women who grew up with computers and cell phones will understand how to manipulate them in a manner more instinct than conscious, struggling thought.

The socioeconomic boundaries between what were ‘first world’ and ‘third world’ countries are shrinking. Much of the world is becoming swiftly industrialized and developed and with those advancements come connections.

And ‘netbabies’ excel at nothing if not connections.