What is Generation Y?

Social scientists like to categorize people born within a 15-25 year period as a "generation". 


Sociologists do this by looking at the major social and behavioral trends that were happening during the formative years of the lives of the people in the generation. 


Generation Y, or the Net Generation is the generation of young adults born between the late 1970's through 1990 (though sometimes it's extended through 1996 in research). This generation grew up with the development of the modern day computer, the internet, and most importantly social media.


Gen Y'ers grew up with different ideals than our parents. Our first national trauma was 9/11, and we've only gotten to know three Presidents: Clinton, Bush, and Obama (we were too young to remember much about Reagan or Bush Sr.). For the most part, Gen Y'ers support cultural diversity and tolerance, open communication, and social justice and entrepreneurship. 


A good example of a Gen Y company is Google. Google's mission statement reads, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". (google.com) Almost all of Google's products have scalable and reliable free or open source versions. This reflects the nature of Gen Y's business culture: collaboration and open communication.


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Today, there are (mainly) four generations of Americans alive:
The Greatest Generation
The Silent Generation
The Baby Boomers
Generation X
Generation Y