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The Net Generation, or N-Gen, describes an age band of people in Western society characterised by their access to and use of digital communication devices to satisfy cultural and social needs, conduct business and experience life in ways fundamentally different from their parents. Also commonly known as Generation Y, the Internet Generation or iGeneration, members of this generational cohort were generally born between about 1977 and the mid 1990s ([1]). N-Gen have grown up with the Internet in a period driven by technological change, determining the way they think, work, play and communicate (Tapscott 1998). For N-Geners the digital world and its possibilities are a fact of life, not a marvel. The convergence of computers, telecommunications and Internet technologies in an integrated communications web opened up news ways to organise human relationships and has become the mainstay of an entire generation of technologically-savvy people (Rifkin 2000, p.218). The digital revolution resulted in the disintegration of geographic barriers and gave way to a global society.
According to Don Tapscott, author of Growing Up Digital: The Rise of the Net Generation, N-Geners embrace interactivity in terms of media consumption, prefer to play participatory role rather than an observatory one, and value self-driven, experiential learning. N-Geners are accustomed to digital technologies, having grown up with them, and it’s suggested the generation gap – a difference in cultural norms – has been replaced by a generation lap – a cohort of kids superceding the knowledge and capabilities of their parents ([2]).
The first generation to grow up with the ubiquity of digital devices, N-Gen mite also be the last to remember a time before the proliferation of PCs, DVDs, and mobile phones. At an estimated age of between 0 and 20 years old, some N-Geners will never know the world pre-Internet and accept technology as commonplace. N-Geners possess a digital literacy that confounds.
The Net Generation exhibits values stereotypical of teenagers across the world ([3]):
According to Oblinger and Oblinger ([4]), N-Geners are hopeful and determined, like public activism and the latest technology and dislike negativity and anything slow. 'For the Net Gen, the Internet is like oxygen; they can’t imagine being able to live without it,' (Oblinger and Oblinger 2005). Their attitudes, aptitudes and learning styles reflect their exposure to information technology.
Coined by Castells in the mid 1990s, (Hartley 2002, p.161) the network society describes the reinvention of social organisation through the development of information technologies. Closely linked to the globalisation paradigm, the network society centres around information technology and its ability to impact economic and political transactions. Proceeding the age of tangible goods, the network society trades in intangibles. For the N-Gen, an information rich society means an 'informed population, capable of self-expression and political and cultural participation through new technologies (Hartley 2002, p.115).'
--Alison Martin 09:46, 28 Oct 2005 (EST)
