Living in South Korea, where cellphone penetration is nearly 100%, the culture of electronic communication is astonishing. It’s normal to see 60 year old women texting effortlessly or 9 year olds using their phones to take pictures and videos of anything they find remotely amusing.

This culture of hyper-connectedness has made me keenly aware of communication habits, both my own and of others. My cellphone usage has sharply increased during my time here, despite having a smaller circle of friends than back home.

Gen Y Never Eats Alone

I realized that with all the avenues of communication available, I’m never, ever really alone. If I’m having lunch by myself, I’ve noticed that I’ll send text messages to people in order to relieve the silence. If I’m bored on the subway, I’ll call or text someone.

If I’m working on something on my laptop — at least one IM program will be open. Sometimes I’ll sign on and passively leave it in the background. I’ll happily oblige if someone engages me in conversation, but I’m content with simply being available.

In my unscientific poll of some colleagues, it’s clear that I’m not alone in doing this. Viewing it objectively, it looks like a strange behaviour. What’s the point of all this seemingly needless connectivity?

The Facebook High

This always-on mindset could be indicative of a generation with low self-esteem. I still remember the days before ubiquitous cellphones, email, IMs and social networking. If you wanted to get in touch with a friend, you’d have to hope they were near a landline or you would go to their house. If you couldn’t connect with them…no fuss, no big deal.

But now that we can connect with our friends (and expect to hear a response anywhere within 24 seconds to 24 hours), we’ve tied our ability to connect into our self-identity. Because we are used to being surrounded by people — from our helicopter parents to our always-available peers — we have become dependent on their communication and addicted to their contact. Are we a generation that self-medicates its emotional issues by sending out texts?

Our personalities are now inextricably linked to our cellphones and Facebook walls. Notification of a new text or message can trigger a dose of excitement, a microsecond-high that makes you think ooh, what could this be? That’s why some people (affectionately known as “Facebook whores”) are so addicted to Facebook. It’s constant reinforcement that says yes, I have friends, and yes, I have social value.

The desire to be liked is certainly not unique to Gen Y. But this is the first generation where you can actually measure your popularity. Just count the text messages in your phone and see how many Facebook friends you have.

Pic by lst1984

During these holidays, my Facebook news feed has transformed into a litany of endless photo albums. There are pictures of parties, beach vacations, families and ugly sweater parties. I see my friends with changed haircuts, doing the same old antics with new (or noticeably absent) significant others.

Inevitably, some pictures I’ve seen — mostly the ones from parties — have resulted in some less-than-flattering photos of my friends. Not surprisingly, these pictures have been detagged.

Detagging is the process of disassociating yourself with a picture on Facebook, in such a way that it is not linked to your profile in any way.

Generation Y Can Pick & Choose Memories

Forgetting about your ex has never been more convenient. Have some text messages that make your heart cringe? Delete them. Really sappy Facebook photos that you wish you never uploaded? Detag them. Does your ex’s IM status talk about their new beau? Block then delete the contact. They never existed. It’s like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, lite version.

Oh God, That’s Detag Worthy!

It’s common knowledge by now that Gen Y is narcissistic. But whenever I see it play out in real life, I’m still floored by just how obsessed we can be when it comes to our peers’ opinions and our image.

Whenever I’m at a bar or club and I see a group of Millennials snapping pictures, the same thing always happens. After someone takes a group photo, the picture-taker will automatically let the people in the picture review the photo. If someone says it is not acceptable, the picture is deleted and the pose is re-shot.

If an ugly photo ever sneaks its way onto Facebook, it is simply detagged. With privacy settings, the self-conscious have even more control about who can see what pictures.

Damage Control In the 21st Century

Can you really blame Generation Y? If Gen X-ers had an embarrassing photo, only a select few people could see it, and then any evidence could be physically destroyed. As our lives go digital, all it takes is one person to Right Click Save As and your shame can become worldwide. Extra difficulty if the incriminating digital evidence is a video.

I bet Star Wars kid would do anything to get a chance to detag.

Thanks for the pic, blythe_d.

Millennials have unprecedented access to product information. Looking for the scoop about a digital camera? Type the brand and model into Google and you’ll be inundated with blogs and reviews. Buying a first car? Go to one of countless auto-enthusiast message boards and you’ll have enough reading material to last you for weeks.

Gone are the days when you would pick up a magazine and read a professional review column, thinking it was the be-all-end-all say on a product. These days, people are putting their trust in blogs, choosing peer opinion versus expert opinion.

Word-of-mouth is not new, but this is new territory for companies constantly jockeying for the market’s attention. Trying to tap into something as organic as blogging has proven difficult. Sponsored blogging company PayPerPost ran into trouble when Google decided that sponsored blogs were unworthy of front-page rankings. The sponsored blogging business model still remains controversial and has yet to see full-fledged mainstream adoption.

The recent news about Bike Hero being fake reminds me that Gen Y has extremely fine-tuned BS detectors — it seems that we think something is even remotely fake, it probably is. It’s almost disillusioning and insulting to think that agencies are continually trying to camouflage adverts. Why pretend to be something? The magic is always lost when you discover something to be a lie, even if it’s just a YouTube video or a funny blog.

It’s a very fine line between corporatizing something natural versus being a contributing participant. For brands trying to infiltrate Gen Y and its media, the key factor is, and has always been, sincerity.

Thanks to Alx for the pic.

It goes without saying that broadband is an unstoppable game-changer in the world of media distribution. We’ve gone from a vilified Napster to the legitimacy of XBOX Live.

Living in the South Korea, the country with the world’s fastest broadband, has really opened my eyes to the gravity of the broadband’s coming influence. You can think of Asia and North America as alternate futures in the story of Big Media vs Broadband.

Since the internet is so fast here — at least 5-10x faster to download music and movies — it’s painfully easy to consume media without batting an eyelash or thinking about payment. Sites that provide links to streaming media (SurfTheChannel is a hit with expats) are extremely popular since they give you access to North American TV shows, so you never have to miss an episode even if you’re halfway around the world. On the other hand, Hulu, NBC’s answer to YouTube piracy, is inaccessible anywhere outside the United States.

In Asia, Broadband wins…along with rampant consumer piracy. As I teach English to South Korean youth, I’m given insights to a generation that seems like it was born with WiFi capability. Whenever I ask about a popular song or band, the kids tell me that I should go on the internet and download their albums. Whenever a movie comes up in a lesson, they tell me that they downloaded that movie or watched it streaming online. There is no resistance or moral hesitation to consuming online media without payment. The kids do it as a reflex, a completely natural instinct.

However, media companies in South Korea have adjusted. Cellphone ringtones make almost as much money as CDs. Kids will use media however they want to and the companies have deftly acted to offset the losses.

Having a chance to live in South Korea has given me a glimpse of what awaits North American technology culture. Cellphone ownership in urban areas is virtually total and in-car GPS systems double as televisions.

Big Media should keep a close eye on how South Korean media has diversified. They can redirect their sinking ship — the hope of reviving CD sales — to a win-win opportunity. They diversify income streams, and we can all go back to liking the music industry.

As long as they don’t try to resurrect boy bands.

Think Gen X and Boomers are too close to their kids? Just wait til we’re moms and dads.

Gen Y has learned that normal parental behaviour involves constant checking-in and hand-holding. For better or worse, that’s another article for another time.

Imagine the big-brother-like level of coddling Generation Y will bestow upon its children. Armed with technology, our ability to stay informed about everything our children do will be almost total.

At least Gen X had freedom
I stay in touch with my parents through email regularly. The great majority of my peers do the same. Everyone in my immediate family has a cellphone and we call and text each other almost daily. A smaller slice of my friends have their parents on Facebook and on their instant messenger, also using those channels to stay in touch.

This might seem like too much communication — but the thing is, I want my family to know what’s going on with me, and I want to know what’s going on with them. In conversations with some Gen X peers, the last thing they wanted is for their parents to be able to keep tabs on them. To quote one directly:

If there needs to be a leash of some kind, I want the longest one possible.

When Generation Y has children (and some already do), technology is going to play a massive role in the way they interact with one another.

Gen Z: nowhere to hide
For example, if we ever became the slightest bit worried about where our kids are — we’d just call them on their cell phones (which, in the near future, will likely have GPS-tracking functionality). So I might not even need to call them, I’d just push a button and some kind of interface will show me where my kid is on a street map. A lot of parents add their kids to MySpace/Facebook/IM to monitor their activity, a trend which will continue in the future. This gives us information above and beyond your whereabouts — we’ll know who you’re talking to and what you’re talking about.

Gen Z: don’t even think about lying to your Gen Y parents, we’ll have documented evidence. Of pretty much everything you do.

cute kid at the park courtesy of mikebaird

As advertising continues to get more targeted and specific, it will soon be very scary and creepy to see ads. They will be a reflection of what marketers think of you. Ads will be served to you based on a general consumer profile, tweaked and customized based on your personal buying behaviour.

Check out this technology from …where else…Japan that allows advertisers to customize the content of billboards using cameras. The cameras use face-detection technology to analyze the person walking by, then tells the billboard to serve the appropriate ad (link)

On the surface, this is harmless. Quite innovative and novel, actually. But this could also go really really wrong, really really fast.

This is what Times Square looks like today (click):

Ideally, this would transform into:

Sufficiently targeted items for my interests and the interests of my demographics. This is the ideal situation, everything is relevant and the ads actually intrigue me. It would be depressing to see that the world thinks that all 20-something males need to survive is beer, condoms and slacker movies, but that’s a different post for another time.

However, that’s an ideal situation. What if I deviated a little from the average?

What if I’m walking around with my buddies? They’d find out instantly that I might want the special edition DVD of Hairspray, that I’m addicted to Gossip Girl, that I have erectile dysfunction and that I need butt cream.

Then again, Generation Y is so used to giving away their privacy that this might actually not a big deal…

Boomers had it pretty simple back in their youth. Want to connect with your friends? Write them a letter, give them a call or go and see them.

Gen X-ers had a little more fun. They could’ve emailed each other over 28.8 or used their pagers to send 1-sentence messages back and forth.

Here’s what Generation Y uses to stay in touch.

To an outsider, it can be a confusing to understand how Gen Y uses those channels just to talk to each other. After all, Boomers just had three channels and they made friends just fine.

To put things in context, here’s what my communication habits are like and how I use the above.

Looking at that chart makes me envy my father’s generation. They didn’t have to worry about drunk texts. Or having personal information all over the internet.

Honourable mentions for Blackberry PINs and Twitter.

Thinking back to my experience working on the sales floor of a consumer electronics retailer, I had the opportunity to see firsthand the effects of marketing and advertising. As a Marketing student, this was extremely exciting. Being exposed to consumer behaviour this close made me feel a bit like Jane Goodall, but with much much smarter gorillas who happened to have money.

This experience also confirmed that yes, Gen Y presents an interesting challenge to the marketing and sales teams of the future. There was a distinct difference in the way my transactions with Gen Y-ers went, as opposed to Gen X and Baby Boomers.

Selling to Boomers vs Gen Y

Here’s how a typical interaction with a Boomer would go, let’s say, for a printer.

Me:: “Hi! Welcome to ABC Electronics. How can I help?”
Boomer: “Hi. I need a printer.”
Me: “Alright, that’s something I can help you with. Let’s take a look at the printer aisle.”
Boomer: “You know what, I don’t know anything about printers. Just recommend me something.”
Me: “Sure, but first, let’s find out what you need from the printer. Do you have a printer now?”

This interaction would continue for a while as I probed for information to make an appropriate recommendation. It would take a lot of energy — I’d constantly be asking questions, gathering feedback and leading the interaction. If at any point there is an impasse between similar printers, I would inevitably get this question:

Boomer: “So which one would you buy?”

Depending on the day — sometimes we had certain goals, wanted to move particular units, or whether I just wanted to test my abilities — I would recommend different things. 99.9% of the printers we had could do everything the customer was looking for, so it didn’t really matter which one I recommended. However, a big part of how much they spent that day was dependent on me.

Let’s compare this to a typical experience with a Gen Y customer.

Me: “Hi! Welcome to ABC Electronics. Is there anything I can help you with?”
Gen Yer: “Hey there. Do you have the Canon Pixma 3000?”
Me: “Let’s check the printer aisle.”
Gen Yer: “Alright. And how much are your USB cables?”

Millennials had already done their homework, making their transactions much faster. In many cases, I couldn’t even engage the Gen Y customers, since they typically just walked in, grabbed the product they were after, then walked out before I could do my spiel.

Gen Y Customers: Smart but Unprofitable

As a salesperson, Boomer customers were great for the department. Since they often relinquished control of the interaction, I could persuade them to purchase my recommendations, as long as they were within a reasonable price. It was much easier to sell them high-margin accessories and services.

Gen Y-ers were also great customers, because they took very little time to serve and I didn’t have to spend half the conversation explaining what a gigabyte was. Generally, they knew their stuff and sometimes corrected me if I had my product info mixed up. They’ve looked at reviews online and know everything they need and what to buy, so it was hard to sell them accessories and services.

Google and Gen Y

Boomers can’t be faulted for their lack of preparedness. They don’t have what I call the “Google Reflex“. Gen Y instinctively looks something up online to get informed, where Boomers, in my experience, are much more comfortable hearing it from a “certified” person. This made them much more susceptible to upsells (which, by the way, aren’t always bad…just expensive) and pitches for accessories (which could be bought elsewhere for cheaper).

During a sale, it’s all about who has the information. Whoever has the information has the control. Whoever has the control wins the transaction.

I can’t recall the last time I went out of my way to watch boxing. The only people I know who are into boxing are people in my parents’ generation, or boxers themselves. Is boxing down for the count?

After watching the MMA event on CBS this weekend, it’s clear that Mixed Martial Arts — MMA — is kicking boxing’s ass. It’s doing a double-leg takedown, them submitting it via armbar. In the nineties, when someone asked if you saw “the fight” last night, that meant boxing or something involving Mike Tyson. Today, it means some kind of MMA fight, likely referring to an event by the UFC, the most popular MMA organization.

The UFC is popular because of two main reasons.

1. Accessibility

The UFC’s partnership with Spike TV has been a huge factor of its success. I was only a casual watcher a few years ago, but The Ultimate Fighter made me a fan. It made it easy to learn about fighters and gave me an appreciation that MMA is much more than human cockfighting.

Channel surfers bored on a Saturday afternoon can stumble on something UFC related, increasing the chances of people getting into the sport. When was the last time you saw a serial TV show about the lives of boxers?

With boxing, it’s all product, no personality. Their relationship with their target market has zero depth.

2. Dana White

MMA fans feel like they can have a beer with Dana. He’s radically different from other league heads like Bud Selig or David Stern. He projects authenticity and has a visible passion for the sport. Dana even posts on some MMA forums and websites.

Basically, Dana keeps it very real. No pre-written speeches or profanity-free interviews from this guy.

Generation Y and their short attention span

Mark Burnett’s The Contender tried to get people interested in boxing again, but failed miserably. It also didn’t help that the winners of the show are currently stagnating in mediocrity, while most winners from The Ultimate Fighter have gone on to compete for a UFC championship.

A huge problem that boxing has is that you only hear about it in spurts. The hype for the Mayweather-Hatton fight last December was massive — but we haven’t heard of anything noteworthy since then.

MMA events are happening monthly so it’s always around, accessible and easy to get into. With so many things competing for Millennials’ attention, you always need to be putting something out there. Maybe boxing should do like I did and get a Twitter account.

Thanks for the pic, John Griffin.

By now, everyone knows that you should set your privacy settings on Facebook. No sense in ending up like another Kevin Colvin. If you’re going to post party pictures on the day you called in sick… at least do a better job of covering your tracks.

I don’t think Gen Y has an appreciation of the permanence of the internet. Once you upload a piece of your life — a blog post, a picture, a video of your cat dancing on YouTube — it’s online FOREVER. I’ve had a Facebook account for about 3 years now, and it only recently dawned on me that there are pictures of me that I’ll never be able to really delete, as they’re stored in a server farm, in a datacenter somewhere, backed up several times over several hard drives, housed in a building guarded with security and alarms. Mark Zuckerberg owns those pictures as much as I do.

The Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Dear reader, we have probably never met…but you can write my obituary. All you need is the login information for the sites that I use.

Let’s say you got your hands on my Google login. You would learn a ridiculous amount of information about me:

• GMail: who I know and what we talk about
• Google Search: things I’ve thought about and looked for
• Google Maps: where I’ve been
• Google Calendar: a detailed list of what I’ve been doing in the past year, complete with date and location

You could also have the following if you accessed my Facebook:

• Wall and Messages: conversations with people I know
• Photos: evidence of what I’ve done, where I’ve been and with who
• Events: date and location of events I’ve attended (can cross-reference with Photos)
• Relationship Status: who I’ve been involved with, the type of relationship and for how long
• Personal info: birthday, interests, activities, education, work history

Combine my Facebook data with my Google data and forget the obituary, you have enough to write a small autobiography complete with pictures and memorable quotes from friends.

the girl Riot recently got me thinking about signing up for Twitter, and in the process, made me realize the following information about me could be publicly available:

• What I’m thinking
• What I just did
• Where I am
• What I am going to do

Google and Facebook already have an intimate detail of my life up to the present. Twitter kicks things into overdrive and brings strangers into this surreal fifth dimension by letting them inside my mind, as they can read about what I’m thinking about to the second.

Get Over Yourself, Dave

I was one of those people who were vehemently anti-Facebook when it first became available. Like all anti-Facebook people, I eventually learned that resistance was futile and got an account.

My capitulation was fortunate, as Facebook has tremendous value in my social life. I quickly got over the hesitation of posting pictures and writing messages that could be seen by everyone. Once I realized that no, Nigerian scammers weren’t going to somehow use that info to scam my bank account, and no, my body parts weren’t going to be secretly harvested while I was asleep, I became more comfortable using Facebook.

It’s a weird lesson Gen Y is learning. Trade in your privacy for really cool social toys. Sooner or later, there’ll be no such thing as a private life, and things that rely on mystery will be dead. I am a firm believer that blind dates and high school reunions will cease to exist.

Despite all this, I’m giving Twitter a shot. I figure that as long as I make sure my boss doesn’t see my tweets while I’m supposed to be home with the flu, I should be ok.