Children of The Internet

The commonly used generations since the baby boomers are:

• Gen X (Born mid-60s to early 80s)
• Millennials (Born early-80s to mid-90s)
• Gen Z (Born mid-90s to mid-00s)

There is a lot of talk about the faults and quirks of millennials and Gen Z, but I think that the difference between these generations and the years we use to mark them are wrong.

The most important and significant generational divide of our time hits with the birth Children of the Internet (CoTI)–kids who grew up in a world with an unrestrained connection to the internet. This time hits at different times in different places, but born ~2000 is a good cutoff. These kids can’t remember a world that didn’t have YouTube, Wikipedia, Facebook, IG, Google Maps and smartphones.

People older than this group <95 with a slow fade towards 2000 remember and have lived in a world of information scarcity. At some point, they went online and experienced the shift into information abundance. For those born after 2000, they know nothing but information abundance.

This group of ~ 18-20-year-olds is coming up and reaching professional age in every country around the world. Their culture transcends all borders because it came from the internet, and that is the most interesting part about them. That the main cultural zeitgeist for this group is in every country around the world.

In the US, Canada, Europe, etc. there has been a more gradual generational shift into the CoTI world. But in many developing countries the shift will be dramatic and direct from older established tradition into rap music, sneakers, entrepreneurship, Fortnite, and memes. The effects of the CoTI coming of age may not appear dramatic where we are, but around the world it will be an incredible shift.