A Look at the New N-Gen of the Economy

Numerous pundits have explored the contributions and shortcomings of baby boomers and even Gen-Xers. But the real movers and shakers of tomorrow, according to author Don Tapscott, are members of the Net Generation.

Tapscott, chairman of the Alliance for Converging Technologies--a Toronto-based think tank dedicated to investigating the impact of new technology and the Internet--has written several books that address issues relating to today’s digital technologies, including the bestseller “The Digital Economy: Promise and Peril in the Age of Networked Intelligence.” His latest book, “Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation,” profiles the 80 million youths who make up this group.

The oldest members--those just turning 20--have quietly slipped past Gen-Xers to occupy history’s center stage, Tapscott says. Not only is N-Gen more populous than Gen-X, it’s also the first generation to grow up in a digital world, Tapscott says. Because of this, they are destined to shake up current economic practices, he says, and rattle the walls of the corporate world.

Tapscott talked about what we might expect from the group as it moves toward adulthood.

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Question: Would you profile the N-Gen?

Answer: There have been a lot of discussions about kids and technology, but nobody has truly looked at the N-Generation. They are the children of the baby boom, about 80 million youngsters born to baby boomer parents between 1977 and 1997. Demographers are just beginning to notice that this is the biggest generation ever.

On the basis of demographic muscle alone, these kids will dominate the 21st century. But the real defining characteristic central to the profile of this generation is that they’re the first children to come of age in the digital era--they’re growing up digital.

Two-thirds of kids above the age of 6 know how to use the computer. The Net is penetrating American homes with children as fast as television did in the 1950s--30% of households with children at the end of this year, 40% next year.

And it’s cool to be online. Teenage Research Unlimited, which has been studying youngsters for many years, found that for 88% of teenagers, the three coolest things to do are to be online, partying or dating.

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Q: How do they relate to “geek culture”?

A: They aren’t geeks, and geeks weren’t a generation per se. I would say, and most demographers would agree, that in America in the last 50 years, there have been only three generations: the baby boom, the 12-year baby bust and the Net Generation. The baby bust is sometimes called Generation X.

The Net Generation is a real generation, not a buzzword. The Web, for these 80 million American youths, is eating away at TV. Rather than being passive recipients of somebody else’s broadcasted video, when they’re online these kids are reading. They’re analyzing, thinking, evaluating, authenticating, composing their thoughts, writing, creating Web sites, constructing their world, telling their stories, researching. This is developing an all-new youth culture and a generation of youngsters who are smart and media-savvy.

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Q:. Hasn’t this been said in the past about the “old” new generations? What makes this generation different?

A: One thing is that 85% of the N-Geners know more about computers and the Internet than both of their parents. This is not guessing. My empirical experience with the 300 children I worked with in order to write “Growing Up Digital” verifies this. This is creating a unique period in human history. For the first time, children are an authority on a central innovation facing society. I was an authority on model trains, but today’s children are an authority on the communications revolution that is transforming business, learning, entertainment, government, health care and every other institution in society.

Whereas in the ‘60s we had a generation gap where there were big differences over lifestyle, values and ideology between kids and parents, here we have a “generation lap,” where kids are lapping ahead of their parents on the info track.

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Q: What about the fact that these kids have yet to move from being passive consumers to productive individuals?

A: A new culture of work is being created by these youths. Compared to television, the Net is something they have significant control over. This will eventually lead to a new kind of independence in the work force, where many of these youngsters will become entrepreneurs.

The new youth culture has a global orientation. It is a culture of innovation and investigation of the media scene. It is a culture of free expression and strong views. It’s collaboration and networking. These attributes give these kids a very different view of work as they go into the work force.

Imagine a wave of 80 million energized, media-savvy, fluent, smart, global, innovative youngsters armed with the most powerful tools for wealth creation ever, coming up against Dilbert Inc.

Imagine the youngsters coming into a workplace and meeting somebody that, because he’s the boss, pretends to be an authority on everything or considers it normal to enroll the youth in a corporate ladder-climbing war. You can be sure that that youth will be out of there in a moment. He’ll create a new company or give an all-new meaning to the term “early retirement.” This will, in turn, cause what I call a generational displacement of the work force.

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Q: Don’t you think that the cost of the Net Generation’s basic tools--the computer and the necessary peripherals to access the Net--are still out of reach for many American families? In other words, aren’t the changes you’re describing going to benefit just the top tier of this generation, while deepening the divide between the haves and the have-nots?

A: Even though many of them don’t have access to the Net, the digital media is the defining characteristic of the generation as a whole. But the digital divide is a big problem. It’s different from TV, which is consumed passively, because the Net and the computer need some kind of literacy and they require access not only to a computer, but also to support services.

The most shocking thing I’ve learned about this problem is that the top third of the generation has access to the Net in their home and the middle is getting access at a very rapid rate. The bottom third is unfortunately flat and going nowhere. The digital divide is not narrowing as some would like us to believe--it is growing.

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Q: What can be done about this problem, and who should be addressing it?

A: This isn’t the kind of problem that can be tackled by families, teachers or even the government alone. It is a responsibility of business, and there are many things that it can do to ensure that this divide will cease to exist. Corporations need to support government initiatives to get technology into the schools and to retrain and reorient teachers. They need to found community computing centers like Plugged-In in Palo Alto.

All companies should participate in a campaign to close the digital divide. One of the things that digital companies could do immediately is to buy computers for all their employees to take home. There is also a hard-dollar business case: When an employee takes a computer home, because of the generation lap, the employee’s children will learn how to use it, not only closing the digital divide, but also teaching parents, so the fluency of the company’s work force will go up. Companies should also finance institutes and foundations to close the divide. A good example of this is 2B1, which is an initiative that seeks to give access to the Net to every child in the world over 5.

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Q: In some places, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, the development and expansion of the digital industry is inflating real estate values. This, in turn, is displacing many low- and even middle-income families with children. What will make the Net Generation more community-oriented than the industry that is responsible for bringing it about?

A: There is much we can learn from children if we just listen to them. I don’t think that this is a generation of self-indulgent, gratification-seeking, irresponsible shoppers.

Looking at the values of these kids, especially teenagers, we discover that they have a strong sense of social responsibility. They care about the world, about communities, about the environment, about AIDS, about war and poverty and many other issues that affect our world.

It is a radical thought that we can learn from listening to our children, because historically we’ve never done that. In addition, these children have $150 billion in direct purchasing power--much more than their parents ever had at the same age--and they have $500 billion in indirect purchasing power. Because of the generation lap, and the fact that they are an authority on something so fundamental to society, these children will dominate marketing in the 21st century.

To help your children develop a caring, community-oriented attitude, I would say: Get yourself wired. Go online with your children. Plan the family vacation on the Net together. Discuss the controversial issue of pornography together and adopt a policy for your family. Negotiate agreements within the family. And use the Net to create a new, open family--not a permissive family, but an understanding and loving entity that is deeply involved in improving relationships with the global world in which we live.

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Freelance writers Mary Purpura and Paolo Pontoniere can be reached via e-mail at pmpurpont@aol.com