Week 3: EOC My Demographics

As a generation Y or Millenial my deomographics suggest, "these children of the baby boomers number 83 million... . With total purchasing power of more than $733 billion" (Marketing: An Intro. for Education Management Corp. 10th Edition,73). While in todays terms (what with a deficit reaching in the trillions), $733 billon may not seem like much, it's double what our parents had. Another thing that makes us up is that we were raised on technology. The Millennials were the first generation to grow up in a world filled with computers, cellphones, satellite TV, iPods, and online social networks. A recent study found that 91 percent of Millennials are on the Web, making up 32 percent of all U.S. Internet users. According to another study, 77 percent of Millennials frequent social networking sites and 71 percent use instant messaging. (Marketing: An Intro for Education,74). While most of our parents are now comfortable with these new technologies it's easy to say that the Millenial Generation adapts better. A new phone that does twice what our last one did, for a Millenial is a no branier. I could do it in my sleep, my mother however, (a Gen. X) needed a bit of help learning her iPhone.  “All generations are comfortable with technology, but this is the generation that’s been formed by technology,” says a Yahoo! executive. For them, “it’s not something separate. It’s just something they do.” (Marketing: An Intro. For Education,74). And this fact is very true. How different would my generation be without iTunes? Without Facebook? Without the internet on our phones? It's almost hard to believe that for our parents this wasn't even an option for them. They didn't have these things and somehow they survived. I think if I went a day without my iPhone I wouldn't know what to do with myself.