Inside generation Y has imerged a new generation, a generation that assumes life is wireless, accessible, and impersonal: the iGeneration.
The iGeneration (no doubt taken from the popularity of the Internet, and more recently the iproducts from the growing, popular, Apple Inc. The iGeneration is roughly from 1986-1999, resting in the center of the Y generation (1977-2003). The iGeneration is also nicknamed the myspace generation, the multi-tasking generation, and the ipod generation.
Wikipedia desribes this new sub-generation:"The term foregrounds the paradoxical ways in which this generation's idiosyncratic subjectivity and individualism ("I") develop within global capitalism and its technological mediation in a way that both constrains and expands the possibilities for identity-formation..."
Really, is the iGeneration a group of disembodied voices? Afterall, who from this generation would rather email a person new to their social network [please note that even the iGeneration uses "network" for a group of friends] than have to call them. It seems to be even more awkward to meet someone face to face after only having conversations "online", through all the venues offered.
Facebook, a up and coming rival to Myspace, has broadened it's network, allowing more than just college students access and keeping the site minimalistic, clean looking, and running well without the multiple advertisements like Myspace. I myself a "Facebook addict", have found many groups entitled "If We're Friends On Facebook, We Should at Least Acknowledge Each Other In Real Life" popping up here and there with a decent following. Many students have no problems clicking "accept" and adding a friend who (s)he will never talk to in an unplugged life.
The iGeneration is one of the most politically inactive generations I've seen as well. Although we all have our causes, our inability to have proper social skills, the guts to meet new people, and our general laziness and attachment to computers keeps us from rallying together outside any network.
The iGeneration complains vastly all over the internet with their poor grammar, only to recede once they get used to a new way of life (take the Facebook Homepage Feed scare for an example).The iGeneration is disembodied voices clamoring for unity, and latching on to any strong leader or "truth", taking things at face value without concern of validity.
So, iGeneration, what do you think of yourselves?
C'mon, make a stand, make an opinion.
I think this generation has a lot of ups and downs to it. On the upside there is a huge stress on individualism. People are no longer listening to what is labeled "cool" becuase just having an ipod is cool. Becuase of ipods and internet sites that are made up of individual content (such as this one) the individual is probably greater emphasized than it ever was before.
The downside to this is that our generation has no identity. There is nothing we will be remembered for but technology. We will not be the punks or the hippies or the mods. We are just the ipods the computers and the posers. We are the people that pretend we are all those other things because nothing new has been created.
Maggie