Social Machinery

Generation 2020 (by some analysts a segment born around 2000 and graduating from high school by 2020) is the latest generation made up of  today’s kids and youth.  Gen 2020 will face a very complex world but they are more conscious about it than any other generation before

Social researchers have studied and debate deeply about gen Y or digital natives (segment between 15-30 years) and their rapid embrace of digital technology. Neverthless, generation 2020 is the first group born into a full digital world. It’s like comparing learning a language in school with being a native speaker.

This generation is not currently part of the workforce but within a decade they will comprise 10%-15% of the workforce and and by 2025 they will be the largest generation at work.

Kids in 2020 is an extremely fascinating group

As any other generation, Kids 2020 will be affected by social economic factors, advanced technologies and world’s tough challenges.

They will grown up with the technology at a hand, surrounded in average by more than 20 devices, 6 different screens, internet available everywhere and a fragmented communication pattern that is mainly supported by communities.

I expect that technology will shape their way of interacting with the world in a deep way. There are 8 C’s that will determine how this generation will live by 2020 and how technology will affect their behavior.

1. Connected life

The majorities of today’s kid are computer savvy and spend a significant amount of time online. They are already connected a had lifelong use of communications and digital media. Worldwide, 89% of all online kids around 6-10 years spent at least one hour online every week. Even do many of their basic social activities haven’t changed compared to former generations, they have different communication styles and preferences than other generations.

Kids 2020 will be more willing  to socialize online through social netoworks, instant messaging or blogs. Their first interaction with Social networking starts on average at the age of 10-11 years.

Also an overwhelming 37% of net kids have visited a online virtual world. With second life hype gone, online virtual world are gaining traction with kids. Actually by 2015, at least 55% of all internet kids will visit online virtual worlds for playing, socialize or meet friends according to emarketer studies.

Finally, gen 2020 will be the most multi-tasking generation to have ever existed, perfectly comfortable with multiple information streams and activities running at the same time. Having a number of browser windows open at once, chatting over IM,  the TV on in the background while sending messages to friends is extremely common.

2. Conscious about humankind challenges

When asked about world main challenges most Gen 2020 identifies global warming and climate change as the world’s biggest issue. During the next decade ecology will be more than a nice thing to do and will start changing political agendas due to unprecedent natural disasters. Kids will face the tough challenge of saving the world; Humankind is the endangered species subject to study.

3. Community based

Accordng to Nielsen reports by 2012, more than 10% of the world’s population will be accessing social media on their mobiles. Youth will comprise a significant share of those early adopters who will explore the possibilities of mobilizing social media.

As community and peer advocacy becomes an important part of kid’s digital life, privacy will be dead. Therefore, a new definition on what is privacy will arise. Anything you do will be informed to the network, so information  will spread like wildfire across thousands of contacts. In the other side, it will bring transparency: Companies will need to open like never before to the public scrutiny.

Gen 2020 will more sophisticated generation who will use technology and their own small networks and innovations to make a difference.

4. Challenged economically

The looming recession would be a culture shock for the generation 2020, compared to Gen Y who experienced unprecedented prosperity during their childhood.

After 16 years of economic prosperity, Gen 2020 will experience significant economic turmoil before they get to adulthood. This will probably make them little more measured, reserved and conservative.

5. Changing behaviors

Generation 2020 is smaller in number than any other current generation. They are typically the children of older parents, born into small, dual income families. This higher attention spam from their parents will be reflected in their behavior.

Also, diversity will be more embraced by kids in 2020. As big internet users from an early age they don’t care whether you are black, white, short, attractive or ugly for establishing relationships.

6. Control

Gen 2020 will be the on-demand generation. In a kind of opposite to existing broadcasting and passively media interaction, kids in 2020 will want to have full control of their experience. In the future, you will need only one TV channel: the one you like. We will move from fragmentation to consolidation of media.

This new shift in control from the broadcast world to the interactive world will promote intensely heightened curiosity. Basically, there is now a new world to explore.

7. Communicate different

This generation will not accept brand that  maintain traditional forms of communication and marketing.  The current advertising logic of attention “interruption” is increasingly ineffective with this generation. We will move from a “dialogue creation” relationship with brands and companies.

8. Collaboration

Gen 2020 will be affected by the paradox of power: sometimes the best way to gain power is to give it away. Phenomenon like Wikipedia, crowdsourcing or creative commons license reflect this new paradox. Gen 2020 understands that nobody knows everything and everyone knows something. Therefore sharing is the best way to bring humanity knowledge together and like any other generation before technology can support this dream.

When it comes to making decisions about brand choice, consumers trust people like themselves most and institutional messages least. Social media therefore provides a key channel for developing and evolving the platform for consumer recommendations without the need to own the conversation. Youth consider consumer reviews as the most influential media in determining a purchase decision.

How they learn

Digital kids are devouring information, solving complex problems, and developing expertise every day. They are doing this using a controller attached to a television set, googling or using a hand-held electronic game. They don’t think of it as learning; they think of it as fun.

As Apple Digital kids study reported, Schools need to move to a more interactive delivery model. Learning should be customized, student-centered, and teachers should act as facilitators of learning rather than transmitters of information.

Emerging technologies that will affect Kids by 2020

Internet will be available everywhere thanks to Mobile broadband. In Asia,  Mobile broadband penetration will be in the range of 60% to 70%. Also everyone will have a mobile phone. But also the boundaries between human beings and computers will rapidly change, from touchscreen displays to smartphones, e-book readers, and even devices embedded within us, like pacemakers and implantable chips. Electronic manufacturers will also be embedding computers in furniture, rooms, cars, doors, and clothing. Embeddable memory extensions or under-skin ID cards would be available.

E-paper: By 2020 analog books will start getting obsolete. Affordable e-reader will give you a multimedia reading with instant translations, real time search for topics or words, automatic updates and recommendation/comments from other people who is currently reading the same book. This will revolutionize the way kids learn. 

Augmented reality: Mobile devices will allow us to connect with people, object and environment in a totally new way. Mobile devices will  interact with objects in the real world, acting more as if they are extensions of our own hands, by pointing and gesturing with them. Taking a picture of a product in the supermarket can send us back information about where the product came from and ecological information. Or you could buy a ringbacktone by just pointing at a band’s poster and then sending it as a gift to a friend’s music player. Just like a common ‘cut and paste’ operation on a desktop computer.

Clothing designers will embed microchip devices in our clothes. We have seen a glimpse of this from running shoes like Nike that have sensors in them that talk to portable music players providing information about our training stats. RFID tags are also becoming miniaturized so can be place as a medical monitoring device that can be worn on the body for dynamic statistics and alerting u real time about our health conditions.