Media using generations did not always exist. In fact they were created relatively recently. The first modern generation is known as the Baby Boomers because it appeared in the large cohort of births that began around 1950. Before this, historical moments produced cohorts with shared experiences, but these people could not talk to each other through electronic media because these new technologies did not exist yet. The remarkable thing is that, once the first generation of ‘Boomers’ appeared, generations that can communicate have never ceased. Five generations now exist; many of the Boomers are still alive, and the youngest, Generation Alpha, are still young children. A correct analysis of generations recognizes generations to have similarities. Active generations like these five did not exist in past history. Even today, they can only be found in certain countries, and are all connected in a similar sociological way. We must avoid fundamental mistakes and keep generations understood correctly because they are complicated.
The first theorizing of a modern generation was made by a Canadian professor of literature in the 1960s. This man was critical of almost everything about the people involved. His name was Marshall McLuhan and a quick succession of publications by him, ‘The Gutenberg Galaxy’ (1962) about the printing press, ‘Understanding Media’ in 1964, and ‘The Medium is the Massage’ in 1967, started discussions of what young people were doing in their new way of communicating. McLuhan’s thinking was based on people’s use of television which was then a new, addictive medium of entertainment. McLuhan liked very little of what he saw young people doing; he preferred reading books and thinking about life critically. He deplored ‘mass media,’ and objected to the Baby Boomers’ clothing style, drug use, and things like their multi-day outdoor concerts that were quickly reported in newsreels and gained international interest. Features of this generation were its new popular music, its political mobilizations against the Atomic Bomb, and the Vietnam War. This new generation of people had transistor radios and listened to music while they walked around.
Did these distinctive features of the first named generation mean that they would all be political and demand social change? The reality turned out that generations did not stay fixed for ever. ‘Boomers’ did not remain the only generation; they did not get left behind and forgotten. This new thing called ‘a generation’ was a collective expression of each age group in countries like America. Boomers grew up and lived distinctive adult lives. But immediately a new and distinctive generation would come into being; the second generation was called Generation X. These younger people had entirely different priorities; they wanted more personal things and were not trying to change society. The early features of these two generations tell us that youth does not keep the same ideals and desires. Each new generation is created by a new cohort of young people. In societies like America, youth had free choice to create the kind of life they wanted. Generations were free to be different and created whatever lifestyle they wanted to live.
We will be looking next at an example of how Generation X young people differed from their Boomer parents. Overall, new generations come together every fifteen years or so, led by the youngest members of each age cohort. Generations are something on-going that require sociological understanding. We will not see generations correctly until we look at them as expressions of particular countries’ politics, economics and desires for personal life. Understanding generations is fun because it expresses the creativity of youth, as led its members through media-using shared communicating.