Facebook Junkie for Life - The story of the Y & Z generation.

Wow! I'm back. I know I have been away for a while. My relationship with by beloved blog is on the rocks. I'm cheating on her with another blog, maybe you know it. But I'm here and typing and I think I've got something good for my beloved blog today!

Today, I want to talk about how the Y & Z generations will be junkies for life.

(Photo:http://phillipian.net/image/3079/med.jpg)

Ok, so lets get the generations straight first.

Gen X 1964-1980
Gen Y 1980-2000
Gen Z 2000-

We are the digital junkies, us Gen Yers and our first drug was Facebook. You see, I ran into several articles today as I was reading around. The first, you may have seen me tweet about it. It's from MarketingDirecto.com. It is an interesting article suggesting that adolescents (Late Generation Y or early Z) are starting to create abusive behaviors with the obsessive use of technology. Obviously, this little piece was written by someone from early Generation X, right? You know, the hippy generation...?? Hmm..

The second article I came across was actually a slideshow on slideshare.net. Take a look at slide 6. I know its in Spanish but bear with me. The slide shows a green bar at the bottom that ranks each generation from Inactive at the far left in Gen X to Creators at the far right in Gen Z, passing through Spectators in Gen X, Affiliates & Recollectors in Gen Y, and Critics before Creators in Gen Z.

The slides also define each generation as follows:

Gen X
Live in an online world 24hrs.
Tend to be Individualist
Look for the Work-Life balance
Value informality
Look for challenges and feedback
Results-Oriented

Gen Y
Have solid technological knowledge
Hard to attract.
Optimistic and Pragmatic or concerned with practical matters (eg. "as a matter of fact")
Look for well-being
Time-management is crucial
Look for pleasure and fun at the office
Results-Oriented

Gen Z
Very connected
Live in a virtual world
Ultra-independent
Multitaskers
In High demand

Take a close look at the last set of descriptions. Gen Z live in a virtual world, ultra independent....and very connected.....Could that be confused with abusive behavior or drug-addiction like behavior? Or could it be the consumption of a new media?

What the slides don't remind us in relation to the first article that I found this morning from MarketingDirecto.com, is that the Generation X grew-up watching television. It was Generation X that made TV big business. TV was the X generations way of communicating and interacting with the rest of the world. It was and still is the main channel of communication. Meanwhile we are seeing TV advertisements fallout as more marketing budgets are geared towards digital media. Marketers are seeing the power of the digital junkie. The new buying generation, Gen Y and their kids (who really make the buying decisions), Gen Z. So we have to ask ourselves, what will be the new medium? Just last week we saw Twitter beat CNN to real news from Iran. As these online communication channels become faster and leaner, when will mainstream news and broadcast leave traditional TV?

To answer that question, our main online communication channels must become profitable first. Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, and MySpace are still very expensive businesses that don't make money building a bubble and we all know what happens to a bubble, right?

So the story of the Y & Z generations and their main communication medium comes down to whether they can understand and build a business model for online communication channels like social networks and video networks. Its the only way we can truly be Facebook junkies for life!

(Source: http://www.slideshare.net/NETINER)
(Source: http://www.marketingdirecto.com/noticias/noticia.php?idnoticia=33940&utm_source=MarketingDirecto&utm_medium=RSS)