Those Unreachable iGens?

Ever since the Baby Boomer generation got defined, sociologists (and the pop sociology found in the media) have had a field day trying to define, compare and contrast that generation with those on either side of it. Generation X, Generation Y (aka The Millennial Generation) have been analyzed to death (at least I think so), despite the fact that there's no solid agreement on when they begin and end.

The Boomers and their predecessors are at least a little better defined. I suppose that's the nature of the beast. It's hard to write history objectively when you're living in it. As time passes this kind of analysis will get easier.

Here's one listing, from the book "Generations" by Strauss & Howe:

Lost Generation (1883–1900)
Greatest Generation (1901–1924)
Silent Generation (1925–1942)
Baby Boomer (1943–1960)
Generation X (1961–1981)
Millennial Generation (1982–2001)
Generation Z (2001–)

But the other day I ran across a different take on the emerging generation(s) coming up behind us (or rather.. behind me, since some of my readers are young-ish). A religious studies professor wrote an article for a well-read magazine for pastors called "Leadership Journal". (The full article is here. The first link is a quick summary on a blog I routinely read.)

The author lumps together the current "emerging adults" under one clever name: iGen, the Internet Generation. He considers it bound by people currently 18-30, which would imply birth years of roughly 1980 through 1992. While the name he coins suggests that members of this generation did not know a world without the internet, I think he is mixing his metaphors.

Internet usage didn't take off until 1998 at the earliest. Witness the creation of ARIN, the clearinghouse for IP addresses in March of that year, and Amazon.com's IPO one year earlier. So surely, someone born in, oh say.. 1982.. remembers the world before the internet. How could you be 16 in 1998 and not be aware that society was beginning to connect digitally in a whole new way?

If "never knowing a web-less world" was the criteria that defined a generation's starting point, you'd have to say that a Kindergartener in 1998 would be the leading edge of that generation. So, I'd say the iGens are really those born since 1993, and would include all those presently unable to legally drink alcohol. They have truly grown up "plugged in", "wired", "connected", "online", choose your descriptor.

Everyone over 18 remembers a time when there was nothing to connect with or plug into, except your CD player. The Diamond Rio PMP300 debuted in 1998. Before that nobody had access to .mp3 files, or any other kind of digital compression. You had a Sony Walkman. That was it.

Now, I would say that "emerging adulthood" is a fair way to refer (currently) to those born between 1980 and 1992. They're between 18 and 30 now, and pretty much correspond with the first half of Gen Y. They watched the world go digital, right there in their hands.

iGens would be those in the second half of Gen Y, for whom the world always has been digital. Maybe Gen Y will be been in retrospect not a cohort at all. Perhaps Gen X should be shifted and stretched to include 1992, and let iGen define those born later.

Whatever is decided, the author of the article identifies five major characteristics of "emerging adulthood":

> They are exploring their own identities in love and work
> They are in an age of instability
> They are in a self-focused period of life
> They feel in between adolescence and adulthood, neither one nor the other
> They are driven by endless possibilities and are actively exploring them—jobs, travel, love, sex, identity, and location. This generation collects experiences more than money. While some may head off to Africa to change the world, at least as many (and probably more) head off to experience the world.

He argues that these are currently coupled with another defining characteristic of both Gen X and Gen Y: being raised in a culture of high self-esteem. Self-esteem has been the mantra from Mr. Rogers to Sesame Street to post-1970s public schools. Previous generations did not have this overarching sense of inherent self-worth. You had to earn it somehow. Self-worth was based on merit.

He says: "The typical emerging adult, if I can capture the trend in one expression, is a 'self in a castle.' That is to say, the 'self' is protected from the onslaughts of those who will attack it. I suspect that this is something unique in history. Never has a generation been more in tune with the self and more protective of the self."

He then quotes a researcher at San Diego State (who is an emerging adult herself) from her book Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable than Ever Before as saying: "The individual has always come first, and feeling good about yourself has always been a primary virtue. GenMe is not self-absorbed; we're self-important."

Oh. So that's what it is! :)

That book examines how this general conclusion emerges from her analysis of social trends when it comes to social etiquette, the centrality of "me," the belief that iGens can be anything they want to be, their experience with pre-marital sex, and their cynical disposition. This culture of self-esteem has also raised expectations of personal accomplishment, in some cases, so high that depression and anxiety accompany iGens like their iPods.

Well, what is the point of all this? It's this: traditional methods of evangelism (or "gospelizing" as the author puts it), which focus on sin and the need for forgiveness, fall on deaf ears with the current set of "emerging adults".

Because of their impervious sense of self-worth, they (generally speaking, with notable exceptions) do not have a clear picture of personal sin. Right & wrong, good & evil are relative and frequently fluctuating categories, rarely applied to personal behavior, especially their own.

Hence no need for forgiveness. You have to have actually done something wrong first, been found morally guilty. This idea of personal moral guilt is not something all that comprehensible to young post-moderns, unless they had it drilled into them in stern religious environments (which are disappearing fast).

They may be spiritual, but not religious - interested in the metaphysical, but without clear categories of right and wrong (even though they might wish to have them), and often are without a sense of sin & guilt. This is very consistent with postmodernism generally.

And that leads us to another topic... but... another time. :)