Those born between 1980 and 2000 now tend to be described as Millennials following a survey in which thousands of them chose this in preference to terms such as Generation Y.

My eldest daughter falls into this category and it is both interesting and daunting to see her embrace communication and web technologies. She is already extremely computer literate and not fazed by the processes of creating and communicating web based content via social networks.

In my professional life I am seeing clear generational divides. The Millennials take to the content management system and processes I have been introducing into the organisation like ducks to water and want to do more and more. The Generation Xer’s are a different matter and find the idea of being empowered to publish content on the web as a daunting prospect and struggle to adapt to the technology without plenty of hand holding.

 As the web became part of job role early in my career I guess I am closer to the Millennials in terms of experiences with the web than with a typical Generation Xer – however I’m sure my daughter would disagree.

When I was taking a surf down memory lane recently I came across the Alcatel-Lucent Lab. This is an interesting resource that researches a range of technology topics with a broad cross section of younger Millennials.

Some recent research that caught my eye was a study into the iPhone user experience amongst teenagers. Unsurprisingly it shows that there is a lot right about the user interface but also that the on-screen keyboard makes texting difficult as it provides no touch indication of input. As the article observes, and as I have witnessed in the past with my nephew, many teenagers can text without looking at the screen just by their familiarisation with a keypad layout and the number of clicks to the required letter. These are skills obviously learnt in many a boring lesson or lecture 🙂