Born in the early 1980’s and having a
father who invested heavily in video arcade machines, I’ve grown up with
technology and have appreciated it for every shard of entertainment, dime it
made for us, and assistance it gave me in getting through school. My father bought our first family computer
when I was 14 years old & I’ve been plugged in ever since. I completely agree that the Millennials do
find that technology is a way of life, but I don’t necessarily see that as a
good thing all of the time. I remember
when I was a student in my first quarter in college and the school’s website
went down. Many of the students waited
until the last minute to turn in their assignments, which had to be done
through the school website. Students
panicking as though December 21st, 2012 came months because the
school’s site went down gave me more than a few laughs as I sat in the lobby
and enjoyed the chaos! It was as though
there was only one way to solve this dilemma:
Wait until things worked again. I
spoke to the instructor aside and asked if anyone bothered to email the
assignment to him, or hand it off to him on a thumb drive, to which he just
shrugged his shoulders. When I got tired
of what I thought was an Ebola outbreak, I asked one of the students why she
didn’t just email him the assignment. I
haven’t seen a face that excited since seeing the faces of my fellow flight
attendants getting their wings pinned on them years ago. I definitely fit the mold of the Millennials –
I own 3 laptops, an Xbox, a smartphone, am on the internet at least a couple
hours a day, visit facebook and twitter almost daily, have 5 digital cameras –
but I also am aware of what life would be like without these things, a sense
that I fear the vast majority of Millennials do not.
The book Armstrong & Kotler (2011).
Marketing: An Introduction, 10th Ed. explains
Millennials “One
thing that all of the Millennials have in common is their utter fluency and
comfort with digital technology. They don’t just embrace technology, it’s a way
of life. 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. ‘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.’” The 83 million children of the baby boomers,
born between 1977 and 2000.
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