Bidiversity

Are you female aged 25-39? Do you work in the private sector earning 40K+ a year? Do you ‘tweet’ at least once a week? Have you had a glance at The Sun lately? Well then update your Facebook status on your BlackBerry right now, because you are part of Generation N!

Research from YouGov has discovered this new demographic through looking into social media. Up until now, brands have been curious about how they can best reach out to consumers on the web and use this medium as a way of forming lasting relationships. Who is visiting their websites? What do they then do? How does information spread? And why?

YouGov started with a group of over 80,000 British adults and measured each one based on attitudes to the web, social networking activities, age, gender, regional and political differences. We then asked them about their online and offline spending habits and some of the typical activities in their social lives.

The first and largest group which has been labelled ‘Mainstream’ (41% of adults surveyed) are very knowledgeable of the Internet and use many of its features. They regard the Internet as a tool, often using it for browsing, shopping and email. The second group, ‘Casuals’ (31% of respondents) use the Internet very infrequently and most likely with aging software and computers. This group is not into socialising of any type (either offline or online) and regard the Internet as a convenience rather than a necessity.

The smallest group, ‘Generation N’, is made up of over a quarter of respondents and these individuals are significantly different to those in the other two groups. They are highly dependent on the Internet for enhancing their social lives, they are extremely active both on and offline and have a large network of active friendships. These people regard the Internet as a part of their lives.

Quite significantly, the women that form part of this group are powerful, political and prominent. When it comes to activism they are just as involved as the mainstream and more involved than casuals, they earn around 10K more than average and are the most likely group to be involved in media, marketing and sales. This networked generation of women are being led by the modern day equivalents of Boudicca and Queen Victoria.

Generation New, Generation Next, Generation Network – even Generation Narcissist: ‘Generation N’ is a cohort of individuals native to the World Wide Web. A decade ago, the web was a place for young men to escape to trade illicit material. “Girls don’t exist on the Internet” was a mantra on web forums and those pretending to be girls were strongly advised to stop doing so. But as technology evolved, new trends began to emerge around the mid-noughties (2005 – 2006). The Internet became faster, easier to use and social networking sites started to materialise. The Internet has quickly become a place filled with women who have their own MySpace, who broadcast themselves on YouTube and tweet their opinions. The Internet began to change from being a place where you ‘went’ as in going to a website or forum, to being a way of ‘putting yourself out there’ and ‘bringing the world to you’, as in e-commerce and advertising. This has become the home territory of our networked generation.

Members of ‘Generation N’ use more types of social networks, have larger networks of friends, have been using social networks longer, doing more with their network and accessing their social networks in more ways. ‘Generation N’ consumes 58% more music than the mainstream and they view newspaper websites almost every day. The Internet serves as a method of gathering information on friends, family and the wider world but also a way of keeping others up to date on their own activities.

‘Generation N’ are not only keen socialites online, but also out on the town. 63% of ‘Generation Ns’ visit the pub at least once a month compared to 44% of ‘Mainstreams’; even when downloading movies and buying DVDs online, 29% of ‘Ns’ visit the cinema at least once a month in comparison to 14% of ‘Mainstreams’; this group has a lot to ‘tweet’ about as well, as 18% of ‘Ns go to a nightclub at least once a month, in contrast to only two percent of ‘Mainstreams’.

‘Generation N’ individuals also spend money while they party – in an average month for every £10 spent by the mainstream, ‘Generation N’ spends an extra £6 when going out with friends. They also spend more on clothes, music and DVDs. The one item that ‘Generation N’ doesn’t spend more on is groceries – ‘Generation N’ is composed mostly of singletons and single mums, so their families are smaller even as their circle of friends expands.

The defining characteristics of ‘Generation N’ are not only its demographics and spending habits but its attitudes towards online identity. ‘Generation N’ defines itself from the mainstream that uses the Internet and the casual internet users by their ownership of responsibility for their own privacy. ‘Generation N’ strongly believes that tools should be made available that allow them to protect their privacy and that it is the individual who is most responsible for their online safety. ‘Generation N’ possesses a confidence consistent with natural born “netizens” (citizens of the net).

‘Generation N’ now composes almost a third of the adult population of Great Britain. With a younger, more tech savvy generation of over 13 million waiting in the wings, businesses will be faced with the possibility of being excluded from this emerging generation and being shut out of this healthy and wealthy network. Soon, success may no longer be measured by those walking through the door, visiting your webpage or searching your name on Google but by those clicking ‘like’ on your Facebook page or ‘retweeting’ a bargain they discovered.

Are you a woman who has left corporate life to start your own business? We want to hear from you.