Every generation thinks that they are the first. The first to feel this way or that, the first to make this or that revelation, the first to do and make things that we find later have been done and made since before we could record their doing and making. But while these illusory and fleeting firsts are common to every generation, there are true firsts being achieved constantly, though they are often subtle enough that they are not noticed even by those in their midst. My generation has been lucky enough to be part of a very important first.
The personal computer (in all its forms) has grown to be, I would say, the single greatest potential source of prosperity in history. It has enabled the internet and a consequent democratization of all sorts of arts and information, as well as the ongoing destabilization of financial institutions via distributed money transfers. The revolution, and it really is one, is ongoing. How unlike the world of 2000, of 1990, is the present day? And 2020 will be doubly, triply removed. As technology further enables itself, the positive feedback creates a greater rate of advance, and thus our acceleration; if this interests you, you should probably go talk to Mr. Kurzweil, since he’s done a bit more work on the idea. I’m not concerned with the singularity, however: my object is the generation to which I belong. I propose that this generation, which I am going to call Generation I for a number of reasons, is the only one to which the rate of advancement of technology was exactly fitted. At no other time in history, and perhaps never in the future, will there be a group of people whose own growth and maturation is so perfectly reflected in the principal technological and cultural advancement of the age.
It’s a serious claim, but I hope to show that it’s founded in observation and not egomania. And let me remark further before I begin, that I am not claiming any special merit for this generation, only a special situation. Lastly: I will speak of “advancement” or “progress” as if they were objectively measurable, when clearly there is much to be said on what those concepts actually consist of. But for the purposes of this article, let us consider them to be, say, the progressively sophisticated bending of the natural world to our needs and wants.
As even a casual student of history (read: a grade-schooler) can see, the rate of technological and cultural advancement has ever accelerated, of course with some interruptions due to warfare and subjugation. This is first observable in the length of “ages” — the stone age, 40,000 years. The bronze age, 2000 years. The iron age, 1000 years. There are too many books written on this topic for me to spend many words on this, and at any rate this acceleration is palpable to those of us living in the modern first world. Moore’s Law was once a simple prediction; now it’s practically a force of nature.
Let us look at recent history, to prime our minds for the idea of what I would call a “generational technology.” The car is a perfect example. Prototyped in the late 19th century, manufactured widely in 1915, increasingly affordable and common over the next 30 years, then producing a “car culture” in the 50s and 60s, followed by an increasingly consumerized nature as the automobile was integrated completely into civilization, and cities and lives began to be designed around it. Today the integration is complete, and perhaps we are on the verge of another change, to a post-car world. I don’t know. But the divisions in the car’s history, you see, are a lot like generational periods. The specific dates and years aren’t important, as generations are a sort of rolling concept, and the lines are wherever the historian finds them convenient to be. So let us look at the stages of the car, which I have also given names (I’m a coining machine today):
Hammer stage: During this time, the concept and platform of the automobile were being determined by the founders and inventors. Things like setting down how many wheels a car will have, which method of propulsion it will use, the materials it will be built from, and so on. There was surely some bickering here, as there was between AC and DC when prototyping electrical devices, but one fundamental form is almost always selected, and for the car it was four wheels, front engine, and internal combustion. This stage is performed entirely by an older generation of inventors, investors, and engineers.
Paper stage: This is the period where the creators turned the design over to the marketers, who make it into a product. Extra features were created within the confines of the pre-established framework, manufacturing methods were improved, the whole process made faster, and other steps taken to make the technology affordable and attractive. For the car this was of course improvement in reliability, luxury, and speed, among other things. It is a stage of intense competition among marketers, who must both inform and sell to the public, to whom the idea of the car (in, say, 1925-1940) is still new and barely affordable. They are largely ignorant on the subject and are likely skeptical.
Tinker stage: Once the car was adopted by consumers at large, as cars were by the close of World War II, the next (very numerous) generation grew up with the “new” technology taken — I don’t want to say for granted but perhaps as granted. The car culture of the 50s and 60s was a result of a generation of people in tune with an important and exciting technology, a generation as familiar with the car as they were with the clock. There was an expansion of the purposes of the car during this time, as well as a great improvement in their quality, since this generation, having grown up with cars, would work to provide the advancements that were not possible under the auspices of either their parents or the inventors, whose ideas were likely no longer applicable. This positive feedback loop, as in other technologies, leads to a second push and prepares the way for the fourth stage.
Mirror stage: Once the car had been proposed, adopted, and grown up alongside of, in the three previous ages respectively, it was ready to become fully integrated. Not just because it had gotten to a certain level of affordability or reliability, but because it was an integral part of the modern person’s life already, and now the task was to shape civilization around it. While the highway creation act in 1956 obviously wasn’t driven by 10-year-old baby boomers, the obligation of government and industry to acknowledge the growing importance of the automobile was clear enough once it was recognized at large as foundational. In this stage nearly everyone is part of the process; the automobile has impressed itself on civilization, and civilization must now reflect it more fundamentally. The term Mirror Stage is actually an existing psychological one (as well as an excellent game), and refers to the period at which a child becomes captivated with its own image. I thought it loosely appropriate.
Essentially: invention, introduction, internalization, integration.
But is there another stage? I don’t think so. The cycle is complete: the changing world births a new technology, the technology is popularized, refined, and eventually fuels the next change. I chose the car as a representative because it is familiar and its effects clear, but with a little work I think that the model I’ve just suggested can be applied to pretty much any technology, from aqueducts to longbows. But this isn’t a longbow blog — so let’s move on.
Note that, in the example of the car, each stage is relegated roughly to a generation. The inventing generation sells to the adopting generation, which brings up the integrative generation. Furthermore, the inventing generation cannot be the adopting generation, and the rate of progression in this case prohibited the adopting generation from being the integrative generation; for the car it took around 50 or 60 years, arguably more, for it to reach its Mirror stage. My belief is that Generation I (born roughly between 1975 and 1985) is the first generation, and possibly the last, to see and be a part of every stage: to be a part of the genesis, popularization, refinement, and counter-refinement of their age’s defining technology.
Now, I don’t claim we invented the personal computer; nor, I’m sure, would those who are cited as having invented it. Like the automobile, the computer was a long time coming and was enabled by advances in many other technologies and disciplines. Early computing was as an exercise in logic, mathematics, and electrical engineering, and its early advances academic. What defined the automobile, and what has defined both the computer and the age in which it has proliferated, was not in fact the creators (brilliant though they were), who were the implements of history, but the people who used them and guided their use. For the car, that definition was stretched out over long decades, and people grew old while automobile technology remained young. For the personal computer and the internet, the infancy of the technology coincided with the infancy of my generation, its adolescence with our adolescence, its growth with our growth, in such a pas-de-deux as has no precedent in history and, for all we know, may have no equal in futurity.
Generation I is the middle child of the information age. To be born a few years earlier would mean to see the personal computer and the internet as an new and exciting gadget, like the VCR or Walkman. A few years later would be to arrive late to the show: to grow up in the presence of computers, smartphones, and the internet, but not to grow up with them. Taken for granted, these things become black boxes; on the other hand, seen as just another set of devices and applications, they lose their transformational potential. I think the timing is very important, but of course as part of the generation, I am prone to that error.
Our readers will probably remember that computers around 1980 were ugly, limited, and expensive machines. They performed a few of the functions we still value today (word processing, calculating, games) but had no GUI and little connectivity. I don’t want to overstate the parallels, but just for clarity in what I am driving at, consider that an apt comparison might be to a young child, able to see and crawl, or walk totteringly — fundamentally intact, you see, but encumbered with limitations that can only be changed with time and effort.
I remember learning just enough of my dad’s old work computer to find tic-tac-toe and play it on the flickering amber screen. A few years later, primitive UIs are emerging, so primitive that the command line is still unarguably the more powerful tool. Just as Generation I begins to learn to read and to speak, the PC can be communicated to in what we understood as plain language. The first truly popular computers proliferate, running DOS, and a few of us were lucky enough to play with one of the later Apple II models.
In 1990 the GUI and the more complex tools it enables begin to flourish and become fundamental to the PC experience, as Windows 3.0 and the Mac Classic hit the market. Shortly after that, the first affordable modems. BBSes, AOL and its chatrooms and fake internet, and then the revelation of the true web with Mosaic, Internet Explorer, and so on. I won’t waste your time with further details you’re almost certainly familiar with (having lived through them), but you must see the way things are not moving at the rate of a stage per generation like the car. No – they moved more quickly, but not so quick that we lost track. This particular speed of maturation (from “infancy” to “adulthood,” which we may define as, say, Windows XP or OS X; after that I believe the core functionality of the PC OS has not been substantially altered), which is roughly the same as the speed of maturation for a human being, and Generation I has the privilege of being the computer’s twin sibling, if you will.
Though the virtue of being born at the right time is not ours to claim, nor is it simply a novelty that Generation I has grown up in tandem with a world-defining technology. As we grew up with it, we have seen and participated in all the stages of generational technology. We witnessed as children the squabbling between Atari, Microsoft, Amiga, and all the others as they beat the raw metal of computing technology into a shape the world could use. We knew it when it was young, and then we helped it become a household technology by simply being in the household, the way baby boomer kids grew up around cars and ended up knowing cars better than any generation before them. However, cars as a technology practically stood still for the car kids’ formative stages. Not so for us: every year the computer was changing its case, its OS, its capabilities, its interface — everything changed about it, but we still recognized it, the way we’d recognize an old playmate year after year who, though changing in size, aspect, and ability, we still know. That is how Generation I knows the computer, the internet, the smartphone, and whatever comes next. Not as a series of devices, but as the natural progression of a friend whom we know by sight in spite of the changes wrought by time and culture. Perhaps it is best expressed that we know the ghost in the machine, that which has informed and guided the progression of the technology from household appliance to a tool as fundamental as the wheel.
Captain Nemo took pride in the Nautilus “moving through a medium of movement.” He meant the ocean, of course, a place that is never the same one instant to the next, but which he nonetheless knew and navigated freely because… well, because he had a submarine. The metaphor doesn’t extend that far. But the idea of moving in a moving medium is a powerful one. To truly understand the way that the world changes around you, and to not only be able to survive in it but to thrive, to navigate, to direct that change, that is the privilege of a generation born into movement.
I see in my flight of fancy I’ve built up Generation I into quite a ridiculously grand thing, and in doing so made the same mistake that I described in the first sentence of this article. I did not mean to do so, but the simple boon of being born alongside a world-changing technology is not minor: it matured with us and has shaped us as much as we have shaped it, and that means that we are on the front line for the Mirror Stage of the information age. Can you forgive me for being excited to be a part of a sea change in civilization, a change in infrastructure perhaps more fundamental than the integration of the automobile? Few events in history are the equal of this impending shift, if I’m not mistaken. I of course don’t claim it for myself or my generation; it is a glory we will share in, but which we may be able to uniquely enjoy. Imagine being the childhood friend of the first man to set foot on Mars. It’s no credit on yourself exactly, but you just may understand him more fundamentally than anybody else.
What’s that I hear you saying? That we haven’t actually contributed much to the progress of the personal computer and the internet? Very true! If I’ve claimed otherwise I’m very sorry, because Generation I, like the baby boomer generation in the 60s, isn’t quite ready to make our mark. The fact is we’re just starting out. What was the work of the baby boomers? Was it driving cars around fast and knowing how to clean a carburetor? Hell no. Their task wasn’t just to know the technology that would shape their world, but to shape their world. And that’s our job as well. What changes the world will know in the next 20 years are impossible to predict, but you better believe that Generation I are going to set their shoulders to it. The Mirror Stage awaits.
And why Generation I? Before us is Generation X, or so we are told. I’ve heard people my age, or my brother’s, called Generation Y. It’s no use naming a generation before their purpose is clear; otherwise the Greatest Generation would be called the Kaiser Kids or something horribly inappropriate. Generation I occurred to me as I was writing this piece, and as far as I can tell it’s the most evocative of that which truly defines us.
Generation I reflects the burst of technology which in the last decade (as we ourselves have made our real-world debut), has become commonplace, and the prefix “i-” has become a universal indicator of tech. Yes, it’s a bit of a capitulation to Apple, but let’s not fool ourselves: the iPod and iMac immediately became so synonymous with personal technology that i- became generic almost overnight. So we’ve got Generation i. To be honest, I’m not sure if I prefer i or I. I think that, like other instances of the letter, capitalization may vary.
Generation I is also Generation Me, signalizing the increasing independence and compartmentalization of the social order that is the result of the personal computer and the internet, our totem technologies. It’s the paradox of instant connection and constant isolation.
And Generation I is Generation One. This is the most important of all. The coincidence of timing that resulted in us being born with silicon in our mouths also charges us with a serious responsibility — though what it may be is yet unknown. No generation is warned of the tribulations ahead, though with luck our task will be suited to our unique position. But why the One? If, as I suspect, we are in fact the first wave of a new, tech-integrative sort of people, then surely the kids born after us, into a world already possessing high-speed internet, Wikipedia, and GPS smartphones, are Generation II. What better than to start giving version numbers to our offspring? Seems like something Generation I would do.
I’d like to conclude with an apology. If you’ve read this far, there’s a good chance you’re seething with anger at having been excluded from what I seem to think is the most awesome generation of all time, who invented everything worthwhile and will do everything important in the future. I want to correct that potential misconception, though I understand where it’s coming from. Obviously the pioneers of the information age are largely baby boomers, and of course Generation X is one of the great utilizers of technology. And for that matter, kids today fulfill many of the conditions that I think make Generation I so special. I can only say that I tend to get carried away, and that our special situation is really the main thing we have going for us. Am I reaching? Very likely. Am I romanticizing? Most certainly. Let’s chalk it up to youthful vigor.
It is probably true that every distinct generation is born into a confluence of circumstances that is consequential in its own way. Too often, though, I have felt that people my age have been maligned as a passive generation, one of consumption and luxury. That’s actually true as far as it goes, but there is much beneath the surface; who would have thought that the boomers, flower children and hot-rodders in the 60s, would be galvanized by the civil rights movement and Vietnam, emerging to become the most powerful demographic in the country, and perhaps the world, for decades running? It is toward such heights that Generation I must drive itself. We must show ourselves equal to the special favor we have been granted, and do our part to carry the world into the next age, whatever it asks of us.
Note: if you comment about how this article was too long for you to read, your comment will be deleted. Who cares?
Fantastic post Devin, and really great to see something like this on CG. I will be re-reading it in detail especially as it is very much the theme of my current book in the works (“Threshold Generations: Bridging Worlds and Worldviews”) – looking forward to more!
Glad to hear I’m not the only person thinking along these lines. It’s just been kicking around in my head and I thought I’d give it the space it deserved – and clearly you’re giving it even more.
I’m with you Devin, every 2 years I’m awaiting the next big thing and seeing how the previous tech has been improved.nice
Agreed…………………………………
Best article EVAR
Mindblowing, really..
A few thoughts about the interpretation of progress rate in car industry vs. progress rate in early computing (80s vs 90s).. If you look at those PCs as “the sum of an input device, a CPU and an output device” and compare it with “four wheels, a steer and seats” then you can say that the improvement rate was pretty much the same. Now if you go “under the hood”.. then you have lot of ground to dig since I believe the advances in mechanics were fast-paced too.. I know this is not the intention of the article, just a thought.
On the other hand, if you look at car prototypes along history, improvements were never mainly focused on “user interface”. Only in the last very few years I’ve been noticing an increase in concern about how to improve cars UIs, which was something that computing grew up with, and if you compare a 50s car “ui”, and the one used in most of today’s cars.. it hasn’t gone a long way.
I don’t know which my point was anyway.. :D
nice article. I’ve always found the phrase “MTV generation” rather insulting with some sort of implication of a whole generation would nothing better to do than sit like vegetables in front of TV. It also applies only to a subset of people of a certain age, rather than the whole.
On the contrary “Generation I” captures the vast majority, if not all, of the age group and labels it in a more accurate, more thoughtful way.
I read everyone of your 3393 words, and now that you’ve taunted the trolls, I must respond in-kind.
Solid article and much appreciated. Thanks for not taking the slow news day way out.
What? Serious writing? I won’t stand for it.
As an early prototype gen-xer, it seems we’re far more techno-utopian than boomers or gen i. It will be interesting to see if our platforms are built upon… or scrapped.
yeah, I didn’t want to go too deep into what defined x or what I called “ii” because I’m not one. It’s a question for another day.
Interestingly, I also find that X-ers are more likely to care about online privacy than those in my 25-32 age group
Awesome article, enjoyed to say the least….we’ve come a long way, created tons of digital clutter. Now how do we manage it, everything is fragmented…..weren’t computers suppose to simplify our lives? phooey!
“However, cars as a technology practically stood still for the car kids’ formative stages.”
What rubbish is this ? NO car fan would ever utter it.
Nor any mechanical engineer I have ever meet.
Relatively speaking. For an enthusiast the difference between a ’50 and a ’60 is night and day, but if you look at the difference between computers in, say, ’80 vs ’90, there is a far greater change.
But you can’t cut the car kids off at the 60s.
The 70s muscle > They were the terminus of the car kids.
I would also argue tha the tweeking in geometry in cars and alike should carry just as much weight as any other aspect of cars give the genre of the tech.
If anything I think the car/comp compare is a dangerous one. It detracts from what a decent post.
Well, for a car nut such as myself.
Devin- This article was simply fantastic. An excellent piece of journalism, and a pleasure to read.
I was born in ’88 (just outside the ‘i’ generation, I suppose) but I am still amazed at the mind-numbingly rapid pace at which things change in the tech world.
I will definitely be looking forward to more of your articles in the future.
eehm.. Devin. You forgot to mention who generation I is? 1980-1985? or who is it?
He mentioned it:
“My belief is that Generation I (born roughly between 1975 and 1985) is the first generation,”
So essentially your belief is that Generation I are the years (1975-1985). So technically speaking they would be a part of Generation X and Generation Y.
Generation X(1965 – 1976 according to one report) some say it’s 1961-1981….but lets stick with 65-76.
Generation Y (1977-1998) again some say different but stick with this.
So if Generation I is 1975-1985 that means they fall into the X or Y generation.
this was also covered in the article…
No, Pjam, it means that the author took the time to define and explain his vision of reality. You cannot boil 3,000+ words down into “well essentially you’re just saying that Gen I is a part of either Gen X or Gen Y”. Besides the fact that the comment hardly makes sense, it also doesn’t reflect the context that the author himself has provided you.
“Essentially”, go back and read the whole darn article again keeping the author’s context – which he has provided – in mind instead of branding his thoughts with your own frame of reference.
Excellent post. Very thought provoking. I really like the idea of versioning future generations. And I’ve been giving a lot of thought lately to a concept that you so eloquently worded: the paradox of instant connection and constant isolation.
I hope the iGen can save us from ourselves because the old gens have been leading us down a very treacherous path…
Great article Devin, I agree with so much of what you wrote about.
I thoroughly enjoyed this post, however I feel like the printing press is sorely missing from the analysis. This single device revolutionize information in a very similar way and allowed for a knowledge and culture Renaissance and Enlightenment.
While we are indeed an information generation, this term seems too broad in my opinion. Every time I hear it, I can only begin to imagine coming off age in the Renaissance, and being the first generation to experience such unprecedented access to literature and culture.
I say all this because I like to think that we are more than the Information Generation – we are the ‘On Demand Generation’. With all of technological revolutions, no generation has ever had the expectation of instant information such as us. This is why the iPhone is so successful and why we are so enraged when AT&Ts network sucks. Personally, I can’t stomach the thought of having to drudge down to the library every time I wanted to know something, only to struggle to find the right book. This is the true brilliance of the internet – not information but the speed of it, and the unwavering demand for it.
Agreed. Remember the days before you could convince your parents to subscribe to the internet?
If you wanted to know something, you had to go find some ancient encyclopaedia at the library or at school. If it was nighttime, etc, you just had to wallow in ignorance.
And porn? Fuggedaboutit.
Chalk me up to one of those who find your argument weak, egotistical and/or youthful. I agree that those born 1975-85 were the first to coincide with the cycle completing (interesting observation, but BFD), but to arrive at conclusions about how that observation affects cultural nuances of your generation is way, way over-reaching. If you want to stick with your conclusion, you should expand the age range. If you want to stick with your observation and call it simply an observation, then fine. Good luck.
Drats! Missed it by two years! :p
Amazing post Devin! The best I’ve read on CG in quite awhile. I’m definitely going to re-read this later with greater attention. It’s a longy, but a goody!
The Age of Information… Wayyyy better than the Baby Boomer Generation. Helluva lot better reputation, too. Ignorance and bigotry is almost non-existent in younger people and even among people my own age, as well.
Well. One would think you were a Baby Boomer, with so much hyperbole.
Not sure if you bothered to read the seminal work on different generations, namely the book “Generations” by William Strauss and Neil Howe, but there is a pattern to generations, and it’s not entirely defined by technology, however world changing.
Also, the world of 2000 is really not that far removed from the world of 2010. Geopolitically, some things have changed, but (at least in the US), social and technological norms have remained nearly constant (thus the “lost decade” monicker). It might feel different if you were in high school or college in 2000 and an adult in 2010, but that’s the error of extrapolating your personal life into a generalization. Which is what this whole narcisscistic article is in a nutshell.
Yeah, the shift from 1990 to 2000 was HUGE. 2000 to 2010 not nearly so. (from somebody born in 1973). I do think that 2010-20 is going to be BIG though. In 2020 global internet mobile will be well past a tipping point, and kids BORN in 2000-2005 will be in high school/college. Huge.
Madness. Do you remember the state of the PC and internet in 2000? It was still a crude caricature of what it is becoming.
Interesting post. I would just say, Too much apologizing! Have an idea, think it through, eff them if they don’t agree. Besides, a good chunk of your audience fits right into the slot and therfore loves to agree. ;)
Interesting! In my line of work we span the eldest to the young (even down to new parents digitally documenting every waking minute of their newborn babies’ lives) and it’s fascinating how we basically have to have completely separate: 1) marketing language 2) customer support systems & help 3) research. The first generation has now been born that will never know life without the internet. The WWII generation, rapidly leaving us, have seen changes that are mind blowing in that capacity (wrt technology). Interesting article.
Interesting that you’ve come out with this when the debate over generations has already started to classify Generation Y as “old”, and the focused is shifting on to the next generation coming through. Folk born post 1990 are already being labeled as “iGeneration”, replacing Gen Y as the digital natives. As the pace of change accelerates, the date ranges we use to define generations has shrunk.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-02-10-igeneration10_CV_N.htm
Since (or probably even before) the Baby Boomers were told “never to trust anyone over 30, each generation has wanted to define itself a more sophisticated/transformative/better than the generation before it. I expect we all want to think that we’re special and that we’ll change the world. However, the evidence is mounting that generational divides are becoming less relevant with every passing year.
http://peter.evans-greenwood.com/2010/01/14/is-generation-xyz-irrelevant/
Ultimately, though, this is all just a load of hot air. Stop talking about how you’re going to change the world and just get on with it. What generation you from is largely irrelevant; what counts is your actions and the results/outcomes these actions bring. There are no special favours, only results. And as many of the baby boomers can tell you, changing the world is a lot harder than it looks.
I concur, Peter. This article smacks of writing off a group of people in favor of another group. When the reality is that the world’s myriad urgent and complex problems require all of us to work together as well as we can. The young can learn from the old, and vice versa. FYI I was born in 1970 and am a web developer.
I do think the subject of how rapidly evolving technology (specifically information technology) is affecting the socialization and world view of certain age groups (those with access to hi speed internet, anyway – important caveat) is a fascinating and worthwhile study.
“Stop talking about how you’re going to change the world and just get on with it.”
Already did, it’s called Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg was born in 1984.
Twitter. Jack Dorsey was born in 1976.
“Stop talking about how you’re going to change the world and just get on with it.”
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was born in ’84. Twitter’s Jack Dorsey was born in ’76.
World changed.
Good point on that. Generation i definitely has unprecedented tools at their disposal to change the world. When I was a teenager in the 80s, if you wanted to put something innovative out there you had to go through some major legal and financial hoops. But now if a person has a bright idea they can expose it globally and gain adopters as soon as they can build it. The explosive growth of Google, Facebook, Twitter etc. would not have been possible just 15 years ago. Youth of today (providing they are on the right side of the digital divide) live and breathe an amazing new potential for self-actualization.
And if you look at the world as a giant neural network – humans as networked neural clusters – humanity’s collective brain processing power is leaping forward dramatically within that period.
Ok, I’ll bite, how did Facebook change the world any more than Classmates.com before it? How did Twitter change the world any more than the group SMS messages popular in Europe and Asia long before most people in America even knew their phones could send text messages?
All this “social media” and “online community” stuff goes way back to The WELL, back from the dial-up BBS days!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_WELL
Political action and organization over a computer network? Yep, it happened on The Well. In fact, The WELL is where the EFF was founded. A new method of content distribution giving people a way to reach an audience circumventing publishers? Yep, several authors got their start on The WELL. Promoting music acts and letting artists connect with their fans? Yep, as long as you consider The Grateful Dead musicians, and Deadheads fans. A way for people to connect and both meet and have dealings with other people? Yep, in fact The WELL is where Craigslist started. Mind you, this was all back in the ’80s, and was started by a couple of old geezers from the WWII generation.
It is a hard lesson for young people to learn, but the first time you heard about something was probably not the first time it happened, and most of the time if someone is taking the time to tell you how revolutionary their product or service is, it probably isn’t.
Hmm… Gen X was given that name as the “undefinable generation” precisely because they spent their time on things like computer games, Apple IIe, skate boards, snowboards, etc… so which generation actually grew up with this stuff?
Seems like it would be more appropriate, and perhaps even useful if we all came to the understanding that every generation post X has been a derivative of X. Gen X was labeled X as an insult. Atari and Intellivision were wastes of time.
Gen X has been paving the road this world is trading on for quite some time. Heck, with GW being a perfect sorry example of a baby boomer seeking approval from his oh so greatest of generation Dad, Gen X and all derivative generations following in their unified wake, made a collective statement of “oh yeah, take that!” and put a black man in the white house. That means something in this world, and Gen X understands that, and has been all about that for a long time.
History is a hard tale to tell… but Gen X’ers are the ones that have been doing the heavy lifting from a social reform and chart cutting perspective.
Little brother, your enthusiasm is warranted, but get back in line, because it is only going to be possible to change this world if every generation post X realizes that we can all be one… by defying the BS that went into defining a generation of non-conforming, time wasting miscreants as a Gen X… un-known, unbelieved in, un-definable.
Just the way it should be.
Great article….
But I think that you are off just a bit. I don’t think that we are at the “mirror” stage just yet. I was born in 1980, but like many of my generation, computers and personal processing is not completely
integrated into my life.
The generation behind me, the one that has grown up with computers in their current state, will actually provide the civilization that is built around the personal computer. We have only created the foundation (the car if you will) of a truly integrated infrastructure
Head (Brand) products used the “i” a long time before Apple and it stood for intelligence, so there’s another word to add.
Excellent article! This is exactly how I feel, being born in the early 80′s and seeing personal computing revolutionize the world with the internet. Though, strangely I found that I can’t share this same excitement with my younger brother who was born in the early 90′s. For him, the technology was already there and will always be there. But for me, I feel as if I’m a little bit special to be able to see this revolution. I’m glad someone else feels the same way :)
I suppose because I’m a BabyBoomer that I might be one of the few that respects your article but still worries about Generation B (backlash)… I’m connected to this comment by my facebook account and am scared to death of the repercussions as yet unseen from giving up our privacies, which Generation I doesn;t even bat an eyelid at.
The only hubris here is assuming the cycle is already complete with computers… with all that they’re going to enable in biotech, nanotech, AI, virtual worlds and so forth in the coming decades, we’re barely felt their impact yet. But yes, those of us who live to 2050 will probably see it play out. :)
Also, there is a big gap between the nerdy GenXers who used home computers from an early age and the ones who avoided them until they had to use them at work… the former have a lot more in common with Millenials (but they’re still moody like Xers :)
Good shit. So what if I’m a bit bias due to my birth year. Fact of the matter each generation has to pass the baton, regardless of what point in the cycle there in. However, when you look at things, the internet allowed us to “snatch it”. Props to those who came before us. Its our turn :)
Devin, how old are you
Excellent article! I delivered a similar speech to somebody the other day about how I feel to be witnessing a moment in history as significant as the adoption of the printing press (namely, the death of the printing press).
I might have to disagree with you on a minor point: you seem to regard Generation X as distinct from Generation i. I was born in ’80 but my oldest brother (born in ’71) witnessed the same evolution of the personal computer as I have and it shows. I understand these are neccessary generalities, but I would have to lump Generation X into this category, too. Did you perhaps draw this line based on who will live (or be coherent enough) to witness the “Mirror” stage?
Again, thanks for the post.
Wonderful post Devin.
Born in the early 80s, was in high school in 2000 but really don’t feel we’ve come that far the last 10 years. Total geek, but I’d have to say we saw more innovation between ’90 and 2000 (or even ’95-’00) than in the decade since. Biggest change? I grew up.
Excellent writing. I enjoyed it quite a bit even though I’m a bit too young to fit. Being an extremely nerdy younger person helps to push me back into your era though =P.
You mention that Generation I has grown up “with” computers, smart phones, etc., while previous generations merely grew up “in the presence” of slower-developing technologies. This implies that computers and smart phones have reached their mature development.
But have you considered the possibility that even modern computer and smart phone technologies may still be in their infancy? I bet the people in 1950 – looking back on half a century – thought that they were living at the absolute apex of automobile technology.
The Victorian’s (i.e. 1800s) thought they live at the pinnacle at civilisation as science had obviously discovered all there was to discover :)
yeah i didn’t want to get too much into it, there’s obviously still a huge amount of growth to be had, but if you consider it in the ‘stages’ I set out, I think it’s pretty clear we’re past the paper stage and probably in an extended tinker stage, about to enter the mirror stage. that is, the important part is not whether PC technology has matured completely, but whether it has done so enough to warrant a restructuring of society around it. That’s the process to which I think Gen i has grown up in parallel.
I dunno, but as a later stage baby boomer I feel like I grew up with computers. I was a child when they showed NASA and its rooms filled with computers aiding our ascent to the moon. They actually had computer courses in my high school in the 70′s. Then later in the 70′s, I played and fell in love with the first computer games in bars. My art college had a course in computer art, and I took a course on the Moog synthesizer.
I remember the Big Brother Apple ad . I remember marveling at the first PC brought into one of my first jobs by a RE broker who said this would revolutionize their business in 1984. This was the same time my IBM Selectric was replaced with a stand alone word processor. Wow, no need for white out?
I remember and was wowed by an Atari home game system. And then wowed again at another job that had a Wang server system with a massive data base and those servers as tall as I was took up an entire room just to contain all the real estate transactions in CT and Westchester County, NY. And we all had work stations that saved endless documents we produced to those servers.
Then there was Nintendo and a quirky little Atari computer I bought on clearance at Sears that had a dot matrix printer for which I paid only $200 and hooked up to a small B&W TV for a monitor.
1985 held a new job with a $6,000 IBM AT wherein we all contributed to a growing database solely on that one computer.
Then there was my second-hand IBM AT for $250 in ’93. My shock at discovering shareware. And then there was Windows and color-screens and no more DOS, and this weird thing called a mouse and stories of this strange place called the internet. 1996 I got on the internet and my first thought, just as with every step of the way throughout my computerized life leading up to this was “HOLY CRAP! This will change everything.” And from there on out, not much as surprised me since cuz it’s all out there somewhere on the internet to be discovered…where we came from and where we are heading.
All of my life I’ve grown up with computers. I don’t think the period 1960 to 1990 was any less conducive to rolling with and building on.
Conversely, my son born in 1987, requires me to do wireless setups and just about anything really technical. He was born into the age and while incredibly intelligent in other aspects, is oblivious to the technological changes taking place before his eyes.
Sometimes what is accepted as norm breeds complacency. Sometimes…sometimes, it is those who are wowed or thrilled with each advance that look for and explore the new opportunities those advances present.
I agree with you, Sharon. I was born in 1973. And computer technology has seemed pervasive to me, from the very point I could first perceive colors and sounds. UIs and home networking was admittedly crude compared to what kids have today. But will the long scope of history distinguish between me as a five year old in 1978 and a five year old now, just because today’s kid can run a browser?
oh I would never want to suggest that someone born outside generation i couldn’t be deeply involved with or deeply affected by PC and internet technology. That’s why I called gen i the ‘middle child’ of the information age. like I said, I think we have a special situation in the timing of our birth and the rate of advancement of our age’s chief technology, but i may have failed to make clear that we can make no claim on it, really, other than a unique (and powerful, I think) kind of familiarity.
Although I liked the sociological analysis, one of your fundemental assumptions bothered me: shouldn’t we see evidence of increasing GDP per capita growth if “the positive feedback creates a greater rate of advance, and thus our acceleration”?
Most economists are currently predicting that the productivity growth is slowing down in the Western world…
that’s why i put that little caveat at the beginning about this very idea… one can never speak of ideas like “progress” if they must be qualified according to the changing ideas of economists, no two of whom would agree on how it should be defined. All that matters in this case is an internally consistent definition.
Hi, while I may not belong to the specific generation I given the alamanacal demarcation between 1975 and 1985 , I do believe there are many of us who would like to assign themselves to this pack or be totally annoyed with the post.
Having said that I try and relate the post to my own existence and professional and personal growth through the years. Born in a low middle class family out of india in 1973 ( a wee bit before the Gen I) and going through school reading about IBM and computers and not knowing what they looked like till 1987-88 when one actually tinkered with a keyboard smiling silly that it looks like a typewriter). Yes being able to play DOS based games and making black and white greeting cards by inserting weird 5and 1/4 inch floppy drives into a slot and runninghome telling your family that ‘I now know computers’. In college while computers had taken off with the GUI and subjects like Bachelors in Computer Science and Computer Engineering had just started to be introduced in 1991-93 : it was still a very geeky domain with US or Europe returned family kids having a maturer exposure to ‘computers’ taking up such courses.
Internet started taking off and was relegated to email and song lyrics downloaded from the internet and then somewhere folks like myself got employed within the internet industry knowing somewhere that this is the future. Being able to see how in the last 15 years of my working the internet and devices and computing has evolved and seeing how different and exciting is the work that I do today compared with selling banner html ads on internet sites 10 years ago I see a progression within myself and practically every professional and consumer linked to me in this period. Every action every moment of growth every contribution from every netizen ( or PC user ) has contributed to this rapid phase.
I see the next phase ( or the mirror phase as described by David) as the phase of not the PC but every internet connected device which has partial or some or even specialised computing power ( mobile phones for example) contributing to this growth . This would of course change the shape and form of the web itself but this phase can be viewed as a mirror phase I see it as a reinvention where the concept of the PC ( or what it brings with it ) now percolators into billions of devices and products, services and inventions which we couldnt believe are going to be made possible within our lifetime itself. All of us will have a major part to play in this phase.
Coming from an impoverished emerging market and now working in one of the most developed nations in the world I see this revolution is absolutely amazing . We are seeing civilisation change in front of us and all of this has been made possible like never before. The impact this is having on everything from poverty to information, to knowledge to speed and to business models and most of all to individuals and their thinking is just like never before.
Here ‘s to the next phase of the personal computer where the computing power will become congruous with persons themselves who will now have multiple devices doing multiple things for them. Thanks Devin for putting some of these pieces together – I do believe that the generation may not exist but a virtuous cycle has been created and we are moving to reinvention while intergration continues around us across different strata of society.
Not to be a GenX downerino or sound pretentious (know how that drives millennials crazy), but you are misreading the mirror stage; you should come up with something without the psychosexual baggage. Double-downer: go read up on the “self-actualizers.” The notion of ‘generations’ coinciding with technological-historical phases is dubious, but determinisms are useful palliatives when one gets caught by the face in the mirror.
you continuously say internet but should say world wide web. for a tech blog writer you come off as lacking basic knowledge about technology
not really, the web is a derivative brand of the internet
That was AWESOME.
these technical advancements that we see are going to be minor compare the demographic disaster that’s already starting to catch up to us.
GenX and possibly GenY is the last generation that could have gotten out of college without debt. What’s even worse, there’s so few “apprentice level” positions left, and there will be even fewer in the future. I really feel bad for the kids that’s getting let loose in this economy now, and the ones that follow won’t have it any better.
Poor bastards are already getting out of school with a crushing load of debt and few opportunity to get enough experience to make it to the next stage of career development.
comparison to Victorian period is appropriate. starting of a long decline already started. A few shiny trinkets ain’t going to stop the tidal wave.
It would be interesting to see, say 500 years from now, if the generational shifts you describe would be seen as distinctly. I also think that there are imminent advances in biotechnology which might make the advances of the information age look quaint.
Consider the first graph. Whilst at first you might say it illustrates your point, the thing that you’re missing is the trend of the graph.
In a world where great strides in technology are taking place at a more and more frequent rate, won’t that then mean in 100 years time the speed at which things progressed will seem as static and slow moving as we see previous centuries.
What you are saying is certainly true at this very point in time, but it will be true at any point in time.
With no offence intended (it is a great article) – I think it reflects the ego-centrical nature of all people (more specifically younger generations).
For the record – I am genY.
Pete, while your point is not entirely without merit, your analysis of the graph is way off.
“won’t that then mean in 100 years time the speed at which things progressed will seem as static and slow moving as we see previous centuries.”
In a word: No. I would argue that this graph should not be viewed an exponential growth of the progress of technology over time, but rather as a declining graph of the time between technological advances. To put it in mathematical terms: something like 1/x and not e^x. The difference for x=2 and x=3 is much greater than for x=6 and x=7, for example. That way, the claim may be true for a specific time but not true in the future.
While I agree that the time between technological advances is indeed rapidly decreasing, it makes no sense to assume the same rate of decrease in the future. If so, not many years from now we should be seeing world-wide technological revolutions every second. There are many factors barring such a rapid rate of progress, starting with our ability as human beings to respond to such changes, which is already an interesting topic for study in our rapidly-changing world.
And for the record – I was born in ’87.
A final thought about the article as a whole (loved it, by the way):
I like to think of this age as much as an age of communication as of information. It certainly isn’t a perfect definition, and it can be argued that there have been major revolutions in communications several times in history, but I still think it’s an interesting thought. The internet and mobile phones are basically methods of communications, that are most responsible for the massive (and ongoing) changes in our lives in a very short time.
I’m not so sure posterity will share this view. More likely they will see an important advancement technologically (albiet from their perspective not very impressive anymore), and more importantly an age of tremendous inequality and strife, an age of ego (“I” as you say), an age of adolescence. Look around the world…
The generation to be remembered will not be the ones who pushed the technology forward, but the ones who used it in a way that really made a difference. Frankly, on our current route our generation has missed the boat…
First off, let me say that I appreciate the effort, but I have heard pretty much this exact same claim made every 10 years or so ever since about 1980, with the “important” technological advancements tweaked to fit the argument. Also, I find that over the years, the definition of a generation seems to be getting stretched pretty thin. I mean I just turned 40, yet in my lifetime I have seen Generation X, Generation Y, the MTV Generation, the Millennials, and now you would have me believe Generation I. Pretty soon, it would seem that every graduating college class would have you believe they are their own generation. I don’t really want to get into some heated debate, however, over the self-aggrandizement of one perceived social group over another.
What I find most interesting about your article though, is your perception of the rate of advancement of technology. From your perspective, it would seem that you think it is ever increasing. From my perspective, I would say that the past 10 years have been mind-numbingly static. Name me one socially relevant hot technology of today, that wasn’t around in the late ’90s. It seems to me that the first decade of the 21st century was entirely about branding and marketing, with only incremental technological improvement. Sure, the transistor count on chips keeps going up, but is having multiple cores on a single die really as big an advancement as first making the move from single processor systems, to symmetric and parallel multi-processing systems? Sure, discreet 3D accelerators are many orders of magnitude faster, but is that really as big an advance as moving from CPU 3D calculations, to the first discreet 3D processor?
I tend to look at it in terms of what the world would be like if you just checked out of society and lived on a deserted island for 10 years, then came back.
If you were a normal person who checked out in 1980, and came back in 1990, you would be dizzy. The cold war would have ended. Computers, would have gone from the Apple II, TRS-80 and Commodore PET that were so hot among the nerds when you left, to 486 machines. Television would have gone from a handful of channels to hundreds of channels. Music would have gone from LP to CD. Home video would have gone from expensive machines, and expensive tapes that only the biggest enthusiast would every find the way to afford, to a commonplace addition to every household. There would now be online services like Compuserve and AOL which were created in your absence. The omnipresent pinball machine would have been completely replaced with video games, and the video game console would have gone from the Atari console which was to the SNES. Desktop publishing, digital video editing, computer graphics, IT, data entry, Tech Support, and a host of other entire industries would have been created in your absence.
By the same token, leaving in 1990, when you came back in 2000, the world would be unrecognizable to you. Your job skills would be largely irrelevant, major institutions of society like 24-hour news stations, and the Internet would have been invented in your absence. Rare novelties like portable computers, laptops, handheld computers and mobile phones would have become everyday objects owned by practically everyone. The PDA would have been invented. The smartphone would have been invented. MPEG and MP3 would have been invented. The web would have been invented. The MP3 player would have been invented. Music would have moved fully to digital, and people would be trading tracks on Napster in MP3. TV would have gone from SD to HD. Video games would have progressed from 2D SNES quality games that children played to waste time, to fully immersive 3D experiences enjoyed by the majority of the population. Laserdiscs would have shrunk from huge expensive things that required expensive players, to tiny $20 DVDs that you could play on a machine you could pick up at Wal-Mart for $50.
Meanwhile, had you checked out in 2000, and come back in 2010, what would have changed? People would have replaced their Hotmail or AOL email address with a Gmail address? Google would have replaced Alta Vista as the hot search engine? Google would have branched out into offering more services? Broadband adoption would have gone from 10% to 25%? Smartphones would now be smaller, cheaper, and more common than they were in 2000? BlackBerries would have gone from being carried by only doctors and lawyers to being used by everyone? Napster was replaced by torrents as the way to share files? The iPod replaced the Diamond Rio? Amazon would now sell more than just books? Classmates.com was replaced by Facebook? The chat room would have been replaced by the web forum? The Weblog would have been shortened to just Blog? BoingBoing got more popular? Slashdot was replaced by Digg? We’ve gone from PS2 to PS3? These aren’t exactly world-changing differences.
Please feel free to point out to me any big changes I missed. It is quite possible I just lost my enthusiasm for technological advancement somewhere along the line, so haven’t noticed something big. However, it is my distinct impression that if I went to sleep in 2000, and woke up in 2010, my biggest surprise would not be any major technological advancement, but that the United States actually elected someone named Barack Obama! Otherwise it seems like all I missed was a lot of ridiculous hype around technology that was already hot in 2000, and some welcome, but completely predictable, improvements in the price/performance ratio. I mean off the top of my head, video on the web is about the only major advancement I can think of in the past 10 years, and compared to the previous two or three decades, that is pretty slim.
I hear you – I don’t claim progress in technology to be uninterrupted in its exponential growth, and I noted that it often has “interruptions due to warfare and subjugation.” I don’t want to be political, but the last 10 years have been a conservative (in the true sense of the word) backlash against tech that was quickly outpacing the world. The internet ceased being a wild west and was appropriated by the same interests that eventually appropriate all advances. Not only that, but after a period of such incredible growth as 1980-2000 (which coincides, you see, with the most important period of growth in Gen i), there is necessarily going to be a rest period as society takes a breather and integrates what’s out there.
I don’t disagree with you here, but I don’t think what you object to is actually central to my idea. Progress isn’t to be examined on such-and-such a granularity, otherwise you could say “well there was hardly any advance for 8 months of 1992!” and that too would supposedly negate the idea of continual improvement in tech.
But in a discussion like this, granularity is the entire point. Your entire argument states that someone like me (a Gen-Xer) is “left out” because I didn’t grow up with this technology, therefore am supposedly of a different generation, while my wife made the cut, and so is part of the vaunted Generation I. When you are slicing it so thin, with only 5 years separating Gen-X and Gen-I, and Gen-I being only a 10 year-long “generation,” then looking at a granularity of a decade is actually not too fine a granularity, but apparently twice as coarse as the scope of the discussion.
Using traditional definitions of “generation” the children of the Baby Boomers would be Gen-X, and then the children of Gen-X would be the next generation (Gen-Y or Gen-I or whatever). That gives you a granularity of about the accepted 20 years or so for a generation, though it is admittedly thrown off a bit by how abnormally long people considered themselves Baby Boomers. However, slicing it as you are, I am left asking, if 5 years makes all the difference in the world, then how does it change your thesis if right upon Gen-I entering the workforce, we saw the first technologically stalled decade since WWII?
I mean, if you insist on dividing it up the way you are, then all evidence would seem to point to a more appropriate name for Gen-I being The Consumer Generation. I mean you say a “rest” is inevitable, but why? The Baby Boomers didn’t rest, Gen-X didn’t rest, in fact those two generations together created the PC revolution, the videogame industry, the desktop publishing revolution, the digital video revolution, the Internet and all the things you say are so important to make Gen-I so special. Yet now it is understandable that Gen-I, upon graduating college and starting their career, needs a “rest” to catch their breath?
Mind you, I don’t personally accept your definition. I personally think that anyone born from about ’65 to about ’85 would be Gen-X, and then ’85 to about ’05 being Gen-Y or whatever. using my definitions, I think the stalling of the past decade simply comes down to Gen-X completely selling out, and becoming more worried about retiring at 30 than about changing the world, but by your definition, we are off the hook, because it is you Gen-I kids who entered the workforce and screwed everything up ;-)
I never said Gen X was left out. I don’t know where you got that. I didn’t discuss them because this article was not about them specifically. This article is about a privilege of perspective that those born around 1980 have had, in growing up parallel to the primary tech of the age.
And the granularity of “progress” occurring or not occurring in history has nothing to do with the granularity of my arbitrarily bounded generation. The window is necessarily small because much older or younger and the tech doesn’t have its “infancy” at the same time. even 10 years was stretching it, really.
You say progress didn’t occur in the 2000s. I say that type of rest follows a period of extreme change. You misread or misunderstood: I did not say that Gen I needed to rest.
See, this is where you lose me. You just did it again. You say “granularity of ‘progress’ occurring or not occurring in history has nothing to do with the granularity of my arbitrarily bounded generation” then you follow that right up with with a statement about how even a window of 10 years is stretching it. By the same token, you say “I never said Gen X was left out” and then immediately follow that up with “The window is necessarily small because much older or younger and the tech doesn’t have its “infancy” at the same time.”
Seriously, I’m not trying to be pedantic, but it seems like you are working really hard to say that you, and your friends your age, are special, but then simultaneously want to back away from any appearance that you are trying to say you are special.
It seems to me to be needlessly splitting hairs to say there is some special perspective that kid who grew up with NES and Genesis has, that somehow kids who grew up with Atari and ColecoVision didn’t. I am not really getting your argument that people who grew up into the second or third generation of game consoles somehow have a different relationship with technology than people who grew up into the first or second generation. I mean I can see the difference between not seeing a video game console until you were in college, and having one in your home growing up, but I don’t know if I buy the idea that there is a fundamental difference between those who’s first RPG was King’s Quest, and those who’s first RPG was Final Fantasy I.
There is no doubt that someone who was born in the early ’60s, will have a very different perception of computers than someone who was born in the late ’80s. I’m not so sure that someone born in ’73 has a completely different perspective than someone born in ’78 though. I’m not really convinced that the 3 years before computers started making their way into homes really had that big an impact on a 3 year-old vs. a newborn. By the time they were both in grade school, computers were starting to be accepted as “the future.” Yes, I think there is an argument to be made that someone like me (born ’70), who didn’t touch my first computer until 7 years-old, writing programs in BASIC at 10 years-old, getting told by teachers that I should learn a ‘useful skill’ instead of wasting all my time on those silly computers, might have a very different perspective than someone who grew up with a computer in their house since before they were born, and who learned how to use a computer as natural part of grade school. I’m just not sure that difference happened in 5 years. I certainly haven’t looked up research on it, but my memory is that even by the late ’80s, computers were very sparse even in high schools, and it wouldn’t be until the ’90s that they would become a commonplace appliance every child was used to seeing on a daily basis.
I think the reason your article comes of as a little egocentric, is because you are making a rather common mistake of arbitrarily assigning historical significance to your personal formative experiences, without really nailing down the objective historical relevance. I think there is a point in there about the way the world has changed, and how the people on the cusp have a different perspective, I just think you make a mistake in assuming that all the stuff that happened before you were born doesn’t really matter. The changes you are talking about were really stretched out over a lot longer timeline than you seem to think, and I think that anyone born anywhere from the late ’60s through to the late ’80s has a chance of feeling they “grew up with the technology in its infancy” depending, frankly, on how geeky their family was. I have friends older than myself who were getting paid to write programs in high school in the ’70s, and I have friends younger than me who still had never used a computer by the time they were in high school in the ’80s. There was a long period there when the penetration of computers, was really spotty and uneven, and where you grew up, and the priorities of your family, had as much to do with your exposure to computers as when you grew up.
well, I can’t be any more clear than I’ve already been.
I totally agree with everything Lee Lloyd wrote about the lack of progress from 2000 – 2009. I was born in 1968.
You get no thanks from me, Sir, for wasting my time. I am a member of the age range you assign lofty laurels and apologize for in alternating sentences. I find no connection between my life and the coincidences you say have/will/are making us great.
1) “I propose that this generation, which I am going to call Generation I for a number of reasons…”
“What better than to start giving version numbers to our offspring? Seems like something Generation I would do.”
–It may be something you would do, but it is not something we would do. Namesake suffixes have been around for centuries, and are out of fashion today. The current trend of naming people after seasons, weather, emotions, or antiquated words is also not new in the scheme of things.
2) “[T]he first generation, and possibly the last, to see and be a part of every stage:”
“Moore’s Law was once a simple prediction; now it’s practically a force of nature.”
–If the generational cycle of technology is increasing, and the topical technology of personal computers is developing at close to 1:1*, then how can every future generation /not/ be the escort of the technology of that generation, whatever it is?
*Your sweeping generalization that personal computing, the Internet, and everything bearing a silicon-based processor are, together, a single development is absurd. The Internet is it’s own entity, borne not only from the availability of personal computers, but also nation/worldwide telephony, the progression of cultural celebrity status, and the that of automated, instantaneous communication. It is as much related to paper stock ticker technology as it is to cell phones, and neither have a whit to do with being born 25 to 35 years ago.
3) “Generation I [...] isn’t quite ready to make our mark. The fact is we’re just starting out.”
“It’s no use naming a generation before their purpose is clear…”
–If you had started your article with a warning that you were going to make a lot of tangential correlations between unrelated things, and then contradict yourself at the end, my expectations could have more closely matched my experience.
Which is it, anyways? Is Gen I awesome because we grew up with Game Boys, or because we’ll be making the next great Game Boy? [Oh, sorry, you didn't even mention video gaming, a medium that didn't exist before Gen I, but also wasn't invented by Gen I.]
Ok, try again: Is Gen I awesome because we all bought iPods, or because we’ll make the next great iPod? [Oh, sorry - the iPod postdates the first PMPs by at least 5 years, and only really continues the usage patterns and culture of the Discman, Walkman, or the transistor radio - which hit the market in 1957.]
Third time’s the charm, right? Is Gen I so awesome because of our acceptance of LGBT people as equals, in the same way that the Boomers embraced racial diversity and desegregation? Or is it just coincidence because this movement echoes every social paradigm adaptation, going back to women’s suffrage in 18th century Europe and before? [Ack, again, I bring up something of equal magnitude that just kinda sorta happens along the same time period as the generation you try to claim honors for, but that you didn't even mention. Sorry.]
In closing, sir, I ask only that you keep your egomania to yourself. No amount of feverish apology, even sewn into your article, can right your sinking ship of logical fallacy and false association.
With respect to your argument about the advancement of automobile technology, you are missing the point. The automobile has not changed since its inception – it is still 4 wheels with and internal combustion engine and rows of forward facing seating. And it will never change, because its current form is the most efficient way to create personal transportation. Electic cars and hybrids and alternative fuels will not replace the IC motor for several reasons:
Diesel motors are 60 percent efficient. The losses involved in electricity transmission (yes, your electric car gets its power from fossil fuels) result in a far lower efficiency.
Hydrogen, currently, comes from split methane molecules. It would be MORE efficient to simply burn that methane in a CNG car.
Hybrids have a serious cost, complexity, and disposal problem. That 300 pound battery isn’t free, and those heavy metals inside don’t disappear.
There isn’t enough land on earth to grow crops for ethanol, nor place solar panels to power our cars.
As a member of this generation you are describing, I feel that many of us miss this point – that there really AREN’T better ways to do some things, and we need to stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Much like the hype over tablet computing – it is the same as the car scenario I describe above. Tablets are a less efficient form than a traditional computer. Are they cool? Yes. But they are not a major step forward in any sense. All this generation has created is a way to create value out of nothing, and to live virtual lives. FourSquare, Facebook, YouTube – none of them have any real value. They don’t produce a single thing, yet have massive valuations.
Take a step back and look at the big picture – we are simply a generation of consumers.
1) turn on your sarcasm detector.
2) the PC is and always has been the primary mode of connection to the internet. The internet as it is today is emergent from the fact that the PC has become widespread. Also, tech advances are occurring more and more rapidly, and Gen i, as I said in the article, I feel occupies a ‘goldilocks zone’ where we grew up at the same rate as the technology that is to define the world around us. Already I feel we are past the point where a single generation can see all the stages which I carefully explained with the same perspective as we have had. I don’t say we’re better, only that that we have a unique perspective.
3) I think at this point you were simply looking for things to disagree with. I restricted my scope so as not to have to write an entire book defining every aspect of every person born in the period I describe. I’m not sure what you think I was trying to do, but the point was that people born around 1980 have a unique perspective on technology and the world because of a coincidence between human development patterns and the speed of technology change.
I find it rather amazing that people are becoming so incensed and riled up over a simple (no insult intended – I found your article to be very well-written) perspective piece. Nowhere in your article did I see you mention anything that even hinted at a belief that Gen i is in some way “great” or even “special” and I actually read the parts where you distinctly said that you are saying you do *not* believe it to be so. (I’m glad you haven’t referred to it as “iGen” at all, by the way – I’m completely tired of little ‘i’ characters in front of product names).
I was born in 1975, at the cusp of your definition of what you see as Gen i, and I feel very similar about having matured at a nearly 1:1 rate as the technology around me. As always, there are fits and spurts of growth and rest, but overall there is a close match, as you’ve pointed out. I, also, am doubtful that there will be another generation that has a similar age/technology progression with the primary, game-changing technology of its day, but you never know. It could be happening right now with a technology that isn’t seen as important now as it might be in ten years. 8-)
thanks for getting my back, man. i’m fine with disagreement but I don’t want people to take away that I think people about my age are some sort of super-generation.
face it: the post rocks and you don’t, haterz. all the hater b*tches writing on here have given me the most *profound* case of gas…spare anybody gotta Beano?
p.s. – go ahead, “moderate me” mr. moderator…
So you’re suggesting that you indeed agree that the automobile and the thousands of small “apps” and websites with little to no value are “innovations/inventions” of equal magnitude?
Based on your grammar and spelling, I doubt you were able to comprehend the post at all.
Um… Devin never compared the automobile to “thousands of small ‘apps’ and websites” and said that they are “of equal magnitude,” so I get the feeling that you barely understood the post either.
His comparison was between the automobile and the entire Information Age, as the title suggests. And it wasn’t actually a comparison of the magnitudes of the technologies, but the stages of human growth compared to the stages of growth of the two technologies and how “Gen i” has a rather unique relationship because of the real growth of computer use beginning at about the same time as the birth of “Gen i” members.
Theres many things I would like to say about this post, but I wont…
One thing I will say is, I cannot believe you credit yourself with coming up with “Generation I” by saying “Generation I occurred to me as I was writing this piece…”
That is absurd. The term “Generation I” has been around for AT LEAST 10 years now. Its meaning is “The first generation to grow up without knowing the world without the internet” (or something very close to that definition).
With such a large post, at all the research that was needed for it, I simply cannot believe you give yourself credit for the name. I’m speechless.
guys, guys, forget about i-generation, the q-gen is coming. look what just happened: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/first-visible-quantum-mechanical-system-could-finally-let-cat-out-box
Well, congrats on sparking a surprising amount of fairly passionate discussion, all of which is a good deal more verbose and thought-out than the average TC commentary.
If you’re baby boomer or gen X’er, this article might piss you off, as the writer mentions near the end. Not sure I agree with all of it, but the timeline and speed at which things are progressing, make this a relevant, and brilliant article.
great post!
i am also part of Generation i…
however, i also like to include in the fact that our generation not only grew up with the new technology but we also grew up without the technology. we were taught both the old way and new way of doing things. the new generations only see the new way and the older only the old; but we got lucky and were in the transitional period.
i also believe that of all generations; generation i will have the biggest influence in the near future on where technology will take us. currently, our govt and representatives are all from the old way generation; they can’t even fathom the power of technology and how it can close gaps between the classes or what future it can bring.
Ugh. If I wanted to read a long article I would have read the New York Times…
Great to see articles like this coming out of CrunchGear. Someone needs a bonus for this one. Please keep it up.
This article really resonates with how I think of several generations and how they see computers, software, the internet. Any time mainstream media goes on about how kids “grew up with the internet” and therefore must have a much “better” understanding of it, I think, no, on average, they’re just used to it — they find it quite hard to *understand*. Or as I told my dad, “think of it as when you built that radio from a kit when you were young,” after that time, people just took them for granted, something to buy that just worked, and discard if it didn’t, without clear understanding of what it was and what it did.
So thanks for elaborating on that point and turning it into a coherent article with some new metaphors for me to use when explaining this to other people.
That said, though, I think it should be “Generation i” (the lower-case is important — it’s not “generation me”), and Generation i is not so easy to pin on specific years (1975-1985). If only because of people like Ashish Thomas above — not everybody, everywhere got on the bandwagon at the same time. Make it the first “generation something” that’s not age-specific, and you also avoid the conflicts with X, Y, whatever. Even though I’m from ’71, I never felt at home labeled as Gen X. Your description of Generation i feels right at home, though :)
I enjoyed the thoughtful perspective. Thanks. As an educator of young adults, it’s amazing to see how entrenched their lives are in technology. It seems as though they would literally perish without a phone/computer to rely on for their need to communicate incessantly. They dont have a good grasp on “stillness.” Having lived through the transition (I’m 32), I’m at once tethered to and bothered by the ever-present net. -sent from my iPhone.
Loved the article, Devin!
Being born in ’87 (23) and slightly out of your Generation I limits, I can totally see me being in…Gen2.0; I grew up with a Gateway 2000 for my first PC, Win95. Had a Sega Genesis, then moved to Playstation. CDs, DVDs.
As for those debating on not seeing much change from 2000 to 2010, I don’t where they’ve been to be honest. Just like you said, it’s been the tinker stage. And it’s, quite literally, been tinkered with for the past 10 years. Maybe some people just aren’t all that amazed by the plasma TVs that have now been switched to super thin LED LCD TVs that go up to exceedingly large sizes, soon to be ’3D’ w/ ’3D’ gaming. Or touch screens on everything, from large tables to pocket sized devices. Cellphones I remember in 2000 were the size and weight of bricks, no real screen other than the number or a simple line of text; voice mail was big (as in popular) however. Now cellphones are teeny and nothing but a touchscreen, full color, and not only can you call someone, but you can text them, email them, send them pictures and videos instantly, get on the internet (which has also gone from geocities to …not geocities) and that tech is still growing and being tinkered with. All 3 playstations lived during the time of 2000 – 2010 (PS1 only briefly, but still it counts), and to be in such an industry and see and respect the advances up close is amazing.
I’m with you Devin, every 2 years I’m awaiting the next big thing and seeing how the previous tech has been improved.