Ship of Fools: Generation X etc

Thread: Generation X etc Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

There was a BBC Radio programme recently about a book called Generation X by someone called Jane Deverson, published back in 1965. It revealed two, to me, very surprising things. We're always being told in church circles these days that there are three distinct generations, (+ sometimes a fourth older one), one, oddly, called 'boomers' aged c50-70, Gen X, now aged, c30-50 and Gen Y aged c15-30. Each is supposed to look at life completely differently.

The first surprising thing was that despite its title, the book was about what under the present categorisation, would not have been Gen X but the very first people in the 'boomer' generation. The second surprise was that I'd always assumed that the categorisation was a construct developed by North American social commentators. It turns out that the original Generation X was not only a different generation, but was over here.

The programme researchers had even found some of the people Jane Deverson had interviewed, now in their late sixties and with plenty to say for themselves.

There was then a third surprise. The programme researchers had also uncovered a series of programmes on 'what young people think' made at the end of the war. In those days children started work from 14 but were not called up until 18. So these youngsters would have been born about 1928. Those still alive would now be in their mid 80s. To modern ears the BBC interviewing style sounded unbelievably patronising, but there was an underlying reality in the voices they were catching, which sounded surprisingly modern. Although their standards were probably higher, they weren't even as sexually well-behaved as one would have expected.

So two questions:-

1. Is the standard analysis about 'boomers', Gen X and Gen Y worth anything, or do we in fact all pass through these stages as we journey through life and always have done? To put it a different way, even if you're Gen Y now, by the time you get to age I now am, will you be much like me?

2. If it does have any validity, does it work for all countries and cultures in the same way? So far as I can tell, UK users of this analysis have simply taken North American writings on the subject at face value, without considering whether they transpose effectively into our own culture. If we are going to use this analysis at all, does someone need to do the research to adapt it to our own culture first?

Posted by PaulBC (# 13712) on :

Enoch:
I think you are right . We all go through the stages of growth that the varied generations X, Y or Millenials go through. We just didn't have the titles for it when we were younger .
As for is this an North American phenomena or world wide . Well I would think it is an
universal phenomena . Oh there may be different emphasis in the UK & Europe but I think it's somewhat the same here or in London or Berlin. [Smile]

Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on :

Hey! What about us over-70's? Generation Z??

Some of us have a lot to say for ourselves - and we won't be pushed to the sidelines! [Devil]

Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on :

I've always been deeply skeptical about the whole Boomer/GenX/GenY/milennial/whatever way of analyzing people, simply because I was born in 1965. Depending on whose definition you follow, this makes me either a tail-end Boomer or a very early GenXer -- I'm definitely on the cusp -- and I've never been able to relate to the sweeping generalizations made about either group. People keep being born all the time and don't drop neatly into "generational" categories, and the way we live our lives is affected by so many different factors that the "generation" we happen to belong to could only have at best a very small impact.

Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
Hey! What about us over-70's? Generation Z??

Some of us have a lot to say for ourselves - and we won't be pushed to the sidelines!

If I remember rightly, you are the "builders" since you re-biult the world after WWII

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

The fad for talking about the present set of generation-identifiers came along with the Boomers. They were the largest group of kids born proportional to the adult population ever, due partly to effects of the Depression, and then to the long absence of so many men of child-producing age, which led to what one might politely call "pent-up demand"

This oversize group became used to being the center of attention, partly because of their numbers, partly because "things were going to be good for them" by the parents' desire, and partly because so much changed around them - the invention of teen-age, the shift of the music market to their new tastes and the invention of the technology to support that, the availability of lots of money, the unfettered use of cars by everyone....

The Boomers have always held on to the limelight, and are now kicking their way into old age, while complaining.

BUT they were idealistic in their teens/20s, fat and prosperous in their 40s, and are now querulous, conservative and whining in their 60s.

The Tea Party is one example of this. It demands stuff that is unreasonable but has to be done anyway because "we've always had what we wanted"

But there is also the rise of very conservative ideals which shows up in the racism of the anti-Obama crowd (despite the Civil Rights victories of their generation), the "We-don't-pay-no-steenkin'-tax" ethos of those who were always given everything, the "nuke-them-back-to-the-Stone-Age" attitude of those who used to protest the Vietnam War (self-interest, of course - they wanted to get rid of the draft)

And they are still the biggest group.

Yes, they did go through the same metamorphosis that everyone else did. And the next generations will, too, just with different details.

Oh, speaking of "on the cusp": I was born in '44 -not quite a boomer, but not the earlier gang either. Just an observer of both

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
Hey! What about us over-70's? Generation Z??

Some of us have a lot to say for ourselves - and we won't be pushed to the sidelines!

We are the Silent Generation, and I think we really are different. We were born during the Depression, and we were children during World War 2. I think we have a smaller sense of entitlement than later generations.

Moo

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Wish I could recall the book that went over all the generations since 1900. It too mentioned the Silent Generation. As I recall it had a theory that the generations repeat themselves in general characteristics every three goes--so Gen X corresponds to the Silent Generation come around again. I can sort of see his/her point. We did not grow up under severe outer pressures, but we were the ones to inherit the fallout of the sixties, including parental divorce, substance abuse, etc. and also to get experimented on by the weirdoes who were promoting all kinds of brave new world stuff--freaky new ways of learning to read (or not), and so forth. As a result we generally grew up less confident than our parents, less entitled and less apt to put ourselves forward, and more determined to protect our own children from our own parental screwups.

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

A factor that makes for a blurring between these arbitrary generations is that of siblings. Just as an example my brothers were born in 1939 and 1943, their father was killed in 1943, then I was born 14 years later. Mrs Sioni is eleven years younger than her next of three sisters. Because of wartime deaths there must be a lot of children who were ostensibly boomers but are really "late wartime" babies, born to parents in their thirties, although we had the great good fortune to live in a more prosperous age.

Our own children aren't so different: eldest son was born in 1983, youngest in 1996. Between our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews (and one great-great-niece!), the generations are well mixed up.

[ 11. March 2014, 12:53: Message edited by: Sioni Sais ]

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Nicodemia

The titles for those over seventy are Builders or Great.

Generation X also has a b-name we are the busters.

Jengie

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
A factor that makes for a blurring between these arbitrary generations is that of siblings.

Well, whilst there is some blurring the plural of anecdote isn't data. There were some major social shifts during the 20th century, and to an extent it makes sense to identify differences in the attitudes of the people born on either side of these shifts. Not everyone is going to fit every one of those characterisations - but most people will broadly fit the majority of them.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
... BUT they were idealistic in their teens/20s, fat and prosperous in their 40s, and are now querulous, conservative and whining in their 60s. ...

That's my first question. Is that peculiar to people now in their 60s, or is that just how every generation changes as we progress through life?

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

I've seen a few articles lately, including a great one on NPR that I can't currently find saying that studies show that people do not get more conservative automatically as they age, as I'd assumed. Instead, articles like this one argue that people mostly continue in whatever beliefs they formed when they were young. In other words, if I am right that my generation in the U.S. is rather liberal on the whole and frustrated by the Republican party, then I expect than it forty years or so people will be (perhaps rightly) frustrated by our liberal excesses.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

1. Is the standard analysis about 'boomers', Gen X and Gen Y worth anything

No. Its bollocks. No basis in evidence at all. Just a bit of cheap tabloid pop-psychology.

quote:

or do we in fact all pass through these stages as we journey through life and always have done?

And no. We don't all pass through the same stages of life in the same way.

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

While I am sure that a sociologist could point to distinct factors that actually identify generations, I tend to think that the popularly held images of the generations are a product of the media knowing how to generate advertising revenue.

The media knows a number of things about us. First, humans love nothing more than talking about ourselves. If you want to start a conversation with someone, talk about them. Second, everyone wants to feel like part of the in group. Third, everyone believes deep down that they must live in an important age.

From there, you have a pretty easy business model. Create content that (a) makes the audience the subject of the article (b) reminds them of enough things they identify with so that they will identify as part of a group, and (c) makes them feel that they are historically important. The advertisers will be beating down your door.

I first noticed this trend when my parents (early boomers) had a subscription to Newsweek. At the time, Newsweek's obvious business model was "shove a story about the profound and lasting cultural effects of the baby boom generation on the cover at least once every six weeks." I made fun of them every time the latest "how the boomers changed the world for the better" issue came out.

But it isn't just a baby boom thing. People my age don't buy magazines, we click on links, and hopefully share them on Facebook or Twitter. So there is no shortage of generation identifying content out there for you to click on. Buzzfeed is the major culprit these days. Want to talk about yourself? Click on this quiz which will tell you which 90s sitcom character you are. Want to feel like part of the crowd? Here are 28 pictures of the most amazing toys ever made that you remember seeing advertized as a kid, with minimal commentary (maybe you didn't have all of them, but you know what they are, so you get to be in on the nostalgia). Here are the 25 reasons 80s movies taught you everything you needed to know about life. And just wait to see what these members of your generation do next; it will restore your faith in humanity.

Judging from the number of links they get on my Facebook feed (the ultimate sign of how self interested we all are is the fact that people actually post the results of those stupid quizzes on Facebook as if any of your friends will take the time to think about your result before clicking and finding out what kind of soup THEY are) it is still a remarkably successful marketing strategy.

Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
In other words, if I am right that my generation in the U.S. is rather liberal on the whole and frustrated by the Republican party, then I expect than it forty years or so people will be (perhaps rightly) frustrated by our liberal excesses.

Whereas if I am right in forty years or so people will consider what is now seen as liberal excess to be stuck in the mud regressive conservatism. The views won't have changed but the world will have progressed around them.

Posted by Og, King of Bashan (# 9562) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
In other words, if I am right that my generation in the U.S. is rather liberal on the whole and frustrated by the Republican party, then I expect than it forty years or so people will be (perhaps rightly) frustrated by our liberal excesses.
Whereas if I am right in forty years or so people will consider what is now seen as liberal excess to be stuck in the mud regressive conservatism. The views won't have changed but the world will have progressed around them.

Significant times, I tell you. SIGNIFICANT TIMES!

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
In other words, if I am right that my generation in the U.S. is rather liberal on the whole and frustrated by the Republican party, then I expect than it forty years or so people will be (perhaps rightly) frustrated by our liberal excesses.
Whereas if I am right in forty years or so people will consider what is now seen as liberal excess to be stuck in the mud regressive conservatism. The views won't have changed but the world will have progressed around them.

I gather you presume our statements are contradictory. Already my daughter assumes that anyone can marry whoever they fall in love with. It looks like by the time she's old enough to vote her assumptions will probably be the law in this country. (Note I am not discussing the rights and wrongs of such. Let's not.) So yes, in fifteen more years after that, I suspect our current debate will seem pretty old hat. That doesn't mean we'll not have found something to be excessive about.

Posted by Og: Thread Killer (# 3200) on :

There are tendencies to be found in any group of people who grew up under relatively the same educational, technological and social influences and are experiencing the rest of their lives with those 3 areas influencing them all within the framework of life experience. Tendencies, not definitions.

And there is, like it or not, some interplay/friction between those groups.

I would get into how much us Gen X types are tired of Boomers denying the existence of generational tendencies, but I'm too busy trying to fix the crap the Boomers are leaving us with their continued inability to see that not everybody thinks like them. [Smile]

I look forward to watching my igeneration kid discover what its like to work with everybody else out there.

Posted by Horseman Bree (# 5290) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
... BUT they were idealistic in their teens/20s, fat and prosperous in their 40s, and are now querulous, conservative and whining in their 60s. ...
That's my first question. Is that peculiar to people now in their 60s, or is that just how every generation changes as we progress through life?

The difference is that the Boomers have had everything their way for so long that they feel entitled to continue to mess things up for everybody, regardless. I don't think the Tea Party, in it's present form of intransigence and unadmitted racism, could develop as strongly in any other era - there would be too many people of the various generations opposing them.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Og: Thread Killer:
I would get into how much us Gen X types are tired of Boomers denying the existence of generational tendencies, but I'm too busy trying to fix the crap the Boomers are leaving us with their continued inability to see that not everybody thinks like them.

I look forward to watching my igeneration kid discover what its like to work with everybody else out there.

But is that any more than the tensions that existed between each generation and both its parents and those that are about 15 years older than they are and have grabbed all the best seats?

Your son(?) doesn't think like you. You don't think like your parents and those older than you. What about if they didn't think like your grandparents? And did they think more like you when they were your age? Because we were children when our parents were young adults, we never saw that generation as they were when they were like us.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
... The difference is that the Boomers have had everything their way for so long that they feel entitled to continue to mess things up for everybody, regardless. I don't think the Tea Party, in it's present form of intransigence and unadmitted racism, could develop as strongly in any other era - there would be too many people of the various generations opposing them.

It's very difficult to me to comment on the Tea Party. It's a long way off and in a foreign country. From afar and a position of relative ignorance, It seems to represent blind prejudice. It is very difficult to reconcile it with what, over here, we have been given to understand was the Woodstock, flowers in your hair, generation.

There is also no very obvious way in which it corresponds to anything that we experience here. Our political dialogue may be at times febrile and depressing but it is about different things. That again makes me wonder that if the Tea Party is a mark of what it means to be a Boomer, then being a Boomer is rather too closely defined by the circumstances of the culture within which the pop-commentators invented the term for it to be any use anywhere else.

Posted by Mad Geo (# 2939) on :

I have often wondered how the Hippie-LSD-Liberal-Peacenik Baby Boomers became today's generation that looks remarkable mainstream and maybe even outright Conservative. I certainly know Boomers that carry that flag still, but I think they are just as likely to be a TeaBagger (in the U.S.).

I recall my generation (X) being described in much the same terms that the current Millennial generation is described (lazy, privileged, counterculture). That being said, I certainly see the rise of the helicopter parent as alarming, but potentially that's overblown too. Who knows?

I find the trend across America towards the "nones" (Not religious) as an interesting development, and it seems to increase with the younger generations, based on polling data. In addition, I think there is obvious discrepancies of sexual mores between the oldest generation, and everyone else. Although that may be nothing more than a willingness to talk about it, versus hide it. Statistics say that every generation was sexually active at relatively young ages.

I suspect at the end of the day, there are generalizations that can be made, and supported, about generations at any given time. But it's a moving target, and the media is not likely to be the one to get it right. More like Gallup, or some other polling entity.

Posted by aunt jane (# 10139) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
A factor that makes for a blurring between these arbitrary generations is that of siblings. Just as an example my brothers were born in 1939 and 1943, their father was killed in 1943, then I was born 14 years later. Mrs Sioni is eleven years younger than her next of three sisters. Because of wartime deaths there must be a lot of children who were ostensibly boomers but are really "late wartime" babies, born to parents in their thirties, although we had the great good fortune to live in a more prosperous age.

Our own children aren't so different: eldest son was born in 1983, youngest in 1996. Between our sons, daughters, nieces, nephews, great-nieces and great-nephews (and one great-great-niece!), the generations are well mixed up.

I don't think being born in 1957 constitutes being a "late wartime" baby, if it's the Second World War you are referring to.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by aunt jane:
I don't think being born in 1957 constitutes being a "late wartime" baby, if it's the Second World War you are referring to.

I think what Sioni Sais is suggesting, is that, as we pick up most of our ways of looking at things from those around us when we are small, if you are born to older than average parents, you tend to end up more like people who are, say, 15 years older than you are.

Until very recently, most people married much younger than they do now, and produced their children in their late teens and early/mid twenties.

Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :

Tim Costello in his tips from a travelling soul-searcher (1999) p184 relates a story about three umpires having a beer after a test series.

The oldest Test umpire had come to the end of an illustrious career. Turning to the two younger umpires, he explained his philosophy of umpiring was really expressing the values of his pre WW2 era. He said "When it comes to umpiring there are run-outs, stumpings and LBWs, and I call them as they are."
The second Test umpire, who was a baby boomer born after WW2, was mildly surprised. He raised an eyebrow and said, "Well, if I can be so rude as to slightly disagree; I think there are run-outs, stumpings and LBWs, but I can only call them as I see them"
The third Test umpire, born after 1965, was a baby buster; he spent his time looking at video replays, and he had never actually made it onto the arena. He shook his head in disbelief. He argued that the only common ground they had was that there were run-outs, stumpings and LBWs. "Bur," he added cautiously, "until I call them they ain't nothing"'

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:

... the Hippie-LSD-Liberal-Peacenik Baby Boomers became today's generation that looks remarkably mainstream and maybe even outright Conservative...

The 'Boomers' tend not to be depicted in quite these terms in the British context, maybe because the extremes were never plumbed to quite the same extent here. Studies have shown that the 'Swinging Sixties' were a London phenomenon and what happened in other towns and cities was less dramatic.

Also, ISTM that the key cultural events that occurred here in the 50s, 60s and 70s could be presented as a continuation of what had already been going on in the culture. The means of change (e.g the pill) were developing rapidly, but the changes themselves (e.g. greater sexual license) had already begun, and would continue as the Boomers had children and grew old.

Having said that, the luckiest Boomers had the best of both worlds - they promoted an alternative world while benefiting from what a more ordered society had given them. There isn't really an 'alternative' any more. Just competing moral perspectives battling it out in the public square. The one true faith is corporatism/consumerism, and that's almost impossible to escape, especially not on a small overcrowded island. You can only 'downshift' to a simpler way of life on a rustic Scottish homestead if you were in the rat-race to start with!

But I'm just a disappointed and cynical Generation Xer.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

quote:
Originally posted by aunt jane:
I don't think being born in 1957 constitutes being a "late wartime" baby, if it's the Second World War you are referring to.

Except that rationing had only just been abolished, fruit was hard to get and our parents had the attitude of thrift.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... But I'm just a disappointed and cynical Generation Xer.

So do we all agree with the Guardian that this is a load of nonsense, that each generation thinks it's special but is really just like its parents?

Does it follow that this stuff about Boomers, GenX and GenY is just an excuse to help academic sociologists dip in the shovel to get research funding?

Or is there a Shipmate ready to stick up for them?

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

I am Gen Y/Millenial (born 1989, aged 25). I think being the generation to have the internet while our parents largely did not use or understand the internet has had a big impact. Digital Natives (the generation afterwards, also called the iGeneration) have grown up with the internet and accompanying technology and have been taught it by their parents, rather than my generation who have been teaching their parents how to use it!

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

quote:
Originally posted by SvitlanaV2:
... But I'm just a disappointed and cynical Generation Xer.
So do we all agree with the Guardian that this is a load of nonsense, that each generation thinks it's special but is really just like its parents?

Does it follow that this stuff about Boomers, GenX and GenY is just an excuse to help academic sociologists dip in the shovel to get research funding?

Or is there a Shipmate ready to stick up for them?

I think it's a case of both, really. Societies really do change over time, but the difference between one generation and the next is probably quite small. It only seems big to the people who are experiencing it at the time.

Speaking personally, I do feel caught between older and younger generations in many respects, but a Victorian with a time machine would probably find all of us more or less equally shocking.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Enoch wrote:

quote:
Does it follow that this stuff about Boomers, GenX and GenY is just an excuse to help academic sociologists dip in the shovel to get research funding?

Or is there a Shipmate ready to stick up for them?

I don't think you can deny that there are broad differences between generations.

An example I would use is divorce. Over the last fifty years or so, most of the anglosphere liberalized their divorce laws, and the divorce rates subsequently shot up.

So, if you belong to the first generation to have been collectively raised by parents with(let's say) a 40% divorce rate, you are likely going to have a somewhat different outlook on things than would people raised in a time when divorce was around 10%.

And while I think it's definitely an exaggeration that everyone in the 60s was a hippie who got at least within ten miles of Woodstock, it's almost certainly the case that things like oral contraceptives and the easy availability of marijuana and LSD made the young-adulthoods of the baby-boomers(as well as all subsequent generations) quite distinct from that of the generations born before 1945.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Having written the above, I will say that some of the alleged differences between generations ARE exaggerated, or at least misinterpreted via decontextualization.

I've never quite bought the idea that "Kids today have no respect for their elders!" I suspect that's been a perennial complaint since time immemorial.

And even in situations where it might be true, I think something is probably being left out of the story. Yes, there may be more kids in school mouthing off their teachers in 2014 than there were in 1914. But that probably has something to do with the fact that there are more students IN SCHOOL, period, as a result of kids who would much rather not attend school being either forced or strongly encouraged to stay till graduation.

The kids in 1914 who dropped out of middle-school to apprentice as barbers and blacksmiths probably had about as much respect for the teachers as do their counterparts today who are forced to attend.

[ 19. March 2014, 13:12: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Having written the above, I will say that some of the alleged differences between generations ARE exaggerated, or at least misinterpreted via decontextualization.

I've never quite bought the idea that "Kids today have no respect for their elders!" I suspect that's been a perennial complaint since time immemorial.

And even in situations where it might be true, I think something is probably being left out of the story. Yes, there may be more kids in school mouthing off their teachers in 2014 than there were in 1914. But that probably has something to do with the fact that there are more students IN SCHOOL, period, as a result of kids who would much rather not attend school being either forced or strongly encouraged to stay till graduation.

The kids in 1914 who dropped out of middle-school to apprentice as barbers and blacksmiths probably had about as much respect for the teachers as do their counterparts today who are forced to attend.

It may have been different in the US, but certainly in the UK very few children in 1914 would have been in the equivalent of middle school. Most children got an elementary school education and then left to join their parents at work.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Jade wrote:

quote:
It may have been different in the US, but certainly in the UK very few children in 1914 would have been in the equivalent of middle school. Most children got an elementary school education and then left to join their parents at work.

Yeah, when I wrote "dropped out of middle school", I basically meant "only ever completed elementary".

Even in the 1980s, I remember kids who only seemed to be around for the first few weeks of high school, and behaved in class like they were at a bush party. I'm assuming they dropped out to go work somewhere, or maybe transferred to a trade school.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Jade:

quote:
I think being the generation to have the internet while our parents largely did not use or understand the internet has had a big impact.

This is very over-simplified. I am (theoretically at least) old enough to be your mother and I have been using computers every day in my work for the last 25 years. Admittedly some people of my age won't have had as much experience of using computers, but most office workers would have had to use them in the last 20 years, at least.

Incidentally there is some concern that too much screen time at a very early age can harm cognitive development, so being a "digital native" may not be such a good thing.

As the OP points out, the lines get drawn in different places depending on who's pontificating anyway. According to some people I am Gen X; according to others I am a Boomer. I am (just) old enough to be reviled as a baby boomer - despite the fact that my parents were both war babies themselves - whilst being young enough to be affected by the rising retirement age and pensions crisis.

The only label which actually describes my life accurately at the moment is Sandwich Generation.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Jade:
quote:
I think being the generation to have the internet while our parents largely did not use or understand the internet has had a big impact.
This is very over-simplified. I am (theoretically at least) old enough to be your mother and I have been using computers every day in my work for the last 25 years. Admittedly some people of my age won't have had as much experience of using computers, but most office workers would have had to use them in the last 20 years, at least.

Incidentally there is some concern that too much screen time at a very early age can harm cognitive development, so being a "digital native" may not be such a good thing.

As the OP points out, the lines get drawn in different places depending on who's pontificating anyway. According to some people I am Gen X; according to others I am a Boomer. I am (just) old enough to be reviled as a baby boomer - despite the fact that my parents were both war babies themselves - whilst being young enough to be affected by the rising retirement age and pensions crisis.

The only label which actually describes my life accurately at the moment is Sandwich Generation.

I didn't say anywhere in my post that being a Digital Native is a good (or bad) thing. It's just how it is. Neither do I control how much screen time children have.

Also, using computers does not equal using the internet - there is a clear difference between using word processing software and browsing the internet. I am working-class and neither parent uses the internet regularly, and only very recently started using it for work - no office workers in my immediate family. My mum worked as a shop assistant and my dad was an engineer. Maybe it was different in more middle-class working environments.

Edited to add that my point about my generation using the internet without our parents also using it is more to do with the growth of a unique internet culture - blogging, memes etc

[ 19. March 2014, 16:55: Message edited by: Jade Constable ]

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Also, using computers does not equal using the internet - there is a clear difference between using word processing software and browsing the internet. I am working-class and neither parent uses the internet regularly, and only very recently started using it for work - no office workers in my immediate family. My mum worked as a shop assistant and my dad was an engineer. Maybe it was different in more middle-class working environments.

Edited to add that my point about my generation using the internet without our parents also using it is more to do with the growth of a unique internet culture - blogging, memes etc

I'm culturally working class. And my Mum was also at one point a shop assistan (later became a teacher) and my Dad started work as a railway fitter.

And I was using the Internet before you were born. Including for social networking. In fact we *built* the Internet. The number of emails I sent and recieved each day exceeded the number of phone calls in about 1986 or 87.

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:

Does it follow that this stuff about Boomers, GenX and GenY is just an excuse to help academic sociologists dip in the shovel to get research funding?

I would hope that few funding bodies would fall for such a handwaving bit of populism.

Which doesn't mean there is no value in studying the different effects of experience on differrent age cohorts - just that this simplistic XYZ bollocks couldn't stand up to fifteen minutes of concentrated thought.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Also, using computers does not equal using the internet - there is a clear difference between using word processing software and browsing the internet. I am working-class and neither parent uses the internet regularly, and only very recently started using it for work - no office workers in my immediate family. My mum worked as a shop assistant and my dad was an engineer. Maybe it was different in more middle-class working environments.

Edited to add that my point about my generation using the internet without our parents also using it is more to do with the growth of a unique internet culture - blogging, memes etc
I'm culturally working class. And my Mum was also at one point a shop assistan (later became a teacher) and my Dad started work as a railway fitter.

And I was using the Internet before you were born. Including for social networking. In fact we *built* the Internet. The number of emails I sent and recieved each day exceeded the number of phone calls in about 1986 or 87.

Given that few people even had computer access then, you must be in a tiny minority. Of course there will be exceptions like yourself, but internet culture has only really become widespread in the last 20 years or so. It's really quite obvious that most people were not emailing more than phoning in the 80s.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Jade:

quote:
Also, using computers does not equal using the internet - there is a clear difference between using word processing software and browsing the internet.

Well, yes. Browsing the internet is easier.

Actually finding what you want on it is a little more challenging, which is why librarians were 'early adopters' of the technology. Even if we are too old to achieve the distinction of being digital "natives".

Oh, and what Ken said.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Jade wrote:

quote:
Given that few people even had computer access then, you must be in a tiny minority. Of course there will be exceptions like yourself, but internet culture has only really become widespread in the last 20 years or so. It's really quite obvious that most people were not emailing more than phoning in the 80s.

I agree with Jade that the overall, collective impact of the internet increased astronomically from the early 90s onward. I know that in the late 8os, people were talking about "computer mail" and whatnot, but that was nothing compared to the subsequent tidal wave of e-mail services, websites, videos, chat rooms, that began to hit around '93 or so, continuing to morph to this day with twitter etc.

Even what we are doing right now, posting on Ship Of Fools, would have been an activity totally incomprehensible to 99% of the population in the mid-80s.

[ 19. March 2014, 22:25: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

So, um...

who else remembers Prestel?

Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :

I remember only hearing about it.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Jade, cut us some slack. I too could easily be your mother (Gen X) and have been doing Internet etc for a long, long time. As well as attempting to teach my parents to use it. And my son, who is a woefully screen-time limited digital native aged 12. (Hear the screams of anguish? That's him being forbidden to download yet ANOTHER texture pack for Minecraft.)

Internet is easy. Making the jump from paper to computer, now THAT was hard. Or so I gather daily as I attempt to persuade my elders to take that fence.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Stetson:

quote:
I agree with Jade that the overall, collective impact of the internet increased astronomically from the early 90s onward. I know that in the late 8os, people were talking about "computer mail" and whatnot, but that was nothing compared to the subsequent tidal wave of e-mail services, websites, videos, chat rooms, that began to hit around '93 or so, continuing to morph to this day with twitter etc.

Nobody here is arguing against this; if you go over to Heaven you will notice many of us have posted in the '25 years of the WWW' thread. All we are saying is that being old enough to remember the birth of the Internet does not automatically make you less able to navigate it than someone who is too young to remember a time before computers ruled the earth.

In fact, being old enough to have used computers before the advent of WYSIWYG interfaces and the World Wide Web is likely to mean you understand more about how computers work. Command-driven interfaces and dial-up connections were a lot harder to use.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Stetson:
quote:
I agree with Jade that the overall, collective impact of the internet increased astronomically from the early 90s onward. I know that in the late 8os, people were talking about "computer mail" and whatnot, but that was nothing compared to the subsequent tidal wave of e-mail services, websites, videos, chat rooms, that began to hit around '93 or so, continuing to morph to this day with twitter etc.
Nobody here is arguing against this; if you go over to Heaven you will notice many of us have posted in the '25 years of the WWW' thread. All we are saying is that being old enough to remember the birth of the Internet does not automatically make you less able to navigate it than someone who is too young to remember a time before computers ruled the earth.

In fact, being old enough to have used computers before the advent of WYSIWYG interfaces and the World Wide Web is likely to mean you understand more about how computers work. Command-driven interfaces and dial-up connections were a lot harder to use.

But I do remember a time before computers were widespread! None of my friends had computers before the age of about 12. I have used command-driven interfaces and dial-up connections! We had dial-up for ages.

Maybe I lived in some technology-less wasteland, but I doubt it. Obviously some Gen-Xers have been working in computers for a while, but neither of my parents (born 1964 and 1970) are very computer-literate and most of their friends have only recently got laptops etc. My mum can't even use catch-up services on the Sky box!

Posted by ken (# 2460) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Given that few people even had computer access then, you must be in a tiny minority. Of course there will be exceptions like yourself, but internet culture has only really become widespread in the last 20 years or so. It's really quite obvious that most people were not emailing more than phoning in the 80s.

BUT THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT!

Your experience of these things does NOT mainly depend on age cohort but on whole loads of other things like jobs, education, class, family, where you were born, personal choices, luck, and so on. So the XYZ stuff is pretty useless.

Some events will have effects on an age cohort over a whole country or continent - the great wars of the twentieth century are the obvious candidate - but they have different effects in different places. And different kinds of fallout. The Great Depression was a very different affair in the US from what it was in Britain, and different again in Germany. The baby boom (which happened) peaked about ten years later in Britain.

Even within one country economic events have different impacts on different regions and classes. There were parts of the country where employment and wages rose every year in the 1920s and 30s. One of the defining economic realities for people my age and a little younger in Britain was the way Margaret Thatchers government chopped up the economy into something like pulverised liver, pissed all over it, and flushed it down the toilet. But, in the south of England at any rate, people only a few years older largely managed to keep their jobs and their houses. There were even a few younger people who prospered in the early 1980s - though they mostly seem to have been rich, lucky, or unscrupulous.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

But does being computerate give you a different personality or a different perspective on life? Does being computerate really make you different from your parents? Is it anything more than a new skill like being able to drive or use a telephone?

Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :

Ken

Did you get your first job before or after Margaret Thatcher came to power?

Jengie

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ken:

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

Given that few people even had computer access then, you must be in a tiny minority. Of course there will be exceptions like yourself, but internet culture has only really become widespread in the last 20 years or so. It's really quite obvious that most people were not emailing more than phoning in the 80s.
BUT THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT!

Your experience of these things does NOT mainly depend on age cohort but on whole loads of other things like jobs, education, class, family, where you were born, personal choices, luck, and so on. So the XYZ stuff is pretty useless.

Some events will have effects on an age cohort over a whole country or continent - the great wars of the twentieth century are the obvious candidate - but they have different effects in different places. And different kinds of fallout. The Great Depression was a very different affair in the US from what it was in Britain, and different again in Germany. The baby boom (which happened) peaked about ten years later in Britain.

Even within one country economic events have different impacts on different regions and classes. There were parts of the country where employment and wages rose every year in the 1920s and 30s. One of the defining economic realities for people my age and a little younger in Britain was the way Margaret Thatchers government chopped up the economy into something like pulverised liver, pissed all over it, and flushed it down the toilet. But, in the south of England at any rate, people only a few years older largely managed to keep their jobs and their houses. There were even a few younger people who prospered in the early 1980s - though they mostly seem to have been rich, lucky, or unscrupulous.

There is no need to shout or be rude.

Computer access at a young age is still limited to Gen X at the very earliest. I don't see why the invention of the internet isn't as great an event in terms of generational impact as wars or financial crashes - it very much is. So it makes sense that it would shape the experiences of the generations following its invention, which may well include Gen X. I don't have a problem with Gen X's inclusion.

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
But does being computerate give you a different personality or a different perspective on life? Does being computerate really make you different from your parents? Is it anything more than a new skill like being able to drive or use a telephone?

Being connected to people all over the world and being able to get hold of things so quickly does give you a different perspective on life. Also, internet culture is a distinct culture of its own.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:
Being connected to people all over the world and being able to get hold of things so quickly does give you a different perspective on life. Also, internet culture is a distinct culture of its own.

But so, in their day, were the motor car, the telephone, the television, radio and before that, the spread of the railways in the middle decades of the C19. People adapt to them and then exploit them. I'm in my sixties and I use the web, as this post proves. By the time you are my age, there will have been some changes, ones which perhaps we can't even imagine, which you will welcome and others that your children will think are fantastic, but you won't see the point of.

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