MANILA, Philippines - Generation Share wakes up one day and thinks, “Hey, let me summarize the state of my life in a Facebook status update.”
Meanwhile, Generation Y sees that status update and thinks “Hey, why didn’t I think of that? Maybe I can summarize my life in a Facebook status update as well.”
But when Generation X sees that status update he thinks “How can he even think of summarizing the state of his life in a Facebook status update!? That’s just wholly inappropriate.”
And just how did I come across this multi-generational insight about Facebook? I spoke with some self-declared online stalkers.
Unlike other companies that ban Facebook, Twitter, Multiply and other social networking sites in the workplace, these guys are paid to visit and engage the users of these networks. Their job is to “listen” to the online community, to “read the signs” on the social networking wall and to design service experiences that speak to the growing market phenomenon that is Generation Share (Now, if only I could find someone to pay me for every post I make on my Twitter account).
Wanting to indulge my curiosity about Generation Share, I spent an afternoon connecting offline with some of Globe’s consumer marketing guys: Bunny Aguilar, who heads Convergent Communication Channels, Pao Pena, their digital marketing head,and Veca Villafuerte-Keeler, who handles their brand public relations.
Do you remember uncle bob’s lucky seven club?
Philippine Star: Just for the sake of those of us who require classification, just what are Generation X and Generation Y? What are the generational factors that characterized you as being from a specific generation, aside from your choice of music, the cartoons that you grew up with and the diameter of your headline?
Bunny: I can vouch for Generation X (Laughs).
Yes, I can see that, based on the hairline, we share the same generation. What is Generation X like?
Bunny: They say that wisdom comes from hindsight because when I was at the heart of our generation, we were branded by our elders as Generation X, but I never realized why we were branded that way. As far as we were concerned, we were just normal teenagers at that time. And now that I have hit 40 – oops I just revealed my age (Laughs).
I told you to sign that confidentiality disclosure agreement before this interview started.
Bunny: I realized that we were just an evolution of the generations. You realize your generation in the context of the previous generations. My generation was that of the Martial Law babies. At that time, we never thought that you could leave your house after midnight (Laughs). During that time, I remember that my ates (elder sisters) who attended parties in someone else’s house would not go home, but would stay overnight there because of the curfew. That’s why when my generation got to college, we rebelled by never telling our parents what time we would go home. Now, I realize why: we weren’t used to the idea that you could go out after 12 o’clock (Laughs). So when our parents would ask us, “What time are you going home?” we would answer, “Umaga (morning).” But that was the reality that my generation was born into.
Aside from our hairlines, how can one tell if you are part of Generation X?
Bunny: If you had some form of consciousness during the ’80s (Laughs) then you are part of our generation. It was a generation of house parties and Madonna fans.
And based on your hairline, you appear to belong to Generation Y?
Pao: My generation has a different form of rebellion: It is doing things that our parents cannot relate to anymore. We didn’t have to learn technology because we were born with technology. For example, we grew up with our computer games — from Nintendo to the SNES to the PlayStation to PS2 to PS3 to Xbox 360.
Wow, my generation hardly got past the Atari.
Pao: These are things that my parents would hardly understand. We felt good because we had something better than what our parents knew. And we had to get their “buy-in” for us to get these things.
Bunny: You’re the EDSA Revolution babies (Laughs). They were born into a life of choices. Unlike Generation X, we had very few career choices open to us: to be a doctor, to be an engineer, to be a lawyer.
Re-Learning The Alphabet
Moving forward, what marks the change from Generation X to Generation Share? Where does one generation end and the other generation begin? Even if all these generations listened to Madonna?
Bunny: There is a fine line between generations, and what differentiates Generation Share from the rest is that for them, the world has become a smaller place than our generation ever knew it to be. In fact, this generation feels more Pinoy than ever because they feel as if they are on a global stage. Unlike Generations X and Y, for Generation Share, their options in life have not only increased, but they have also grown! They like to share themselves on social networking sites. During the time of Generation X, uso ang telebabad (It was the in-thing to talk long hours on the phone), so we could also share. But we shared in a different way, one-to-one, and just with a limited number of friends.
Unless you’ve got a party line.
Bunny: Nowadays, I’ve got my adolescent nephews sharing their whole lives with the world on Facebook!
It’s like having multiple conversations where anybody can jump it at anytime.
Pao: It’s not only because Generation Share has got a lot more to share, but also because now sharing is cool. Sharing is the currency: The more you know, the cooler you are among your friends. For example, if one of these kids knows that a particular game is coming out ahead of the rest and is the first to share it online, then he is cooler than the rest of his peers.
It seems to me that the change from generation to generation is marked by technological innovations. Let’s say Generation X, they are the “Easycall” generation, while Generation Y is the “texting” generation while Generation Share is the “Facebook” generation.
Pao: Technology has flattened the way we share. Paging (For the non-history buffs among you, paging is what you can do with an Easycall – RJ’s note) is uni-directional. If you wanted to reply, you had to call a number and send a message. Although texting goes both ways, it is still a person-to-person — and not a person-to-many conversation. But now, you can actually share with thousands of friends on Facebook with the touch of a single button. Technology has enabled this generation to share en masse.
Bunny: It’s almost like the concept of broadcast. Broadcast used to be defined merely by television. But a television broadcast only goes one way. As a result of technology, broadcast has now become multi-directional and is no longer the monopoly of TV. Nowadays, you can create your own broadcast! Everyone can say something and the response rate is so fast!
Mom, what are you doing in facebook!?
Tell me more about this rapidly growing Generation Share: Just who are they? Where are they located? How old are they? How many are they? And can we ask them to stop texting while driving?
Pao: Generation Share is really more a mindset than anything else. It’s not so much about defining people from an age bracket or saying everyone from 13 to 25 years old in Metro Manila. Actually, we are all part of Generation Share because the current mindset is ‘What from your personal life can you share with others?’ It can be as broad as having your mom all the way to your niece using Facebook and all of you sharing whatever you like with others.
Ngek. I dread the day when my mom will start posting comments on my Facebook status updates.
Pao: I think there has already been a change of perspective when it comes to that. I have more and more of my friends who have their parents online also, even though before they might have been afraid to expose their lives through these social networking sites. However, at present, the way we communicate is flat. The rules of exchanging information through a hierarchy at work or at school or at home have blurred. There is more acceptance that there are lots of people out there who can read about our lives. For example, I no longer mind if my boss finds out that — the other day — I was in drunk in a bar. Back in the 90s that would have been an issue. But no longer.
Veca: It is interesting that Generation Share is less a demographic and more a mindset, because now we can see that it’s a mindset that’s very much informed by the environment that everybody is growing up in. And you could be 13 years old or 35 years old and growing up in this tech-enabled media-rich environment, so you could have the mindset too. To some extent, everybody growing up in these surroundings is part of Generation Share.
So Generation Share is sort of multi-generational, much like Madonna.
Veca: Every generation is characterized by a certain type of angst. In Generation X, our angst was because we had very few choices in terms of who or what we could be. Movies of that period were all about people saying, “I don’t want to do what my parents want me to do!” “I want to be my own person, but I feel trapped!” And perhaps in typical Pinoy fashion, we are hiya (embarrassed) to confront our parents or the older generation about how we really feel. But these days, as technology continues to flatten the way that people communicate, parang nawawala na ang hiya (the embarrassment is slowly fading away). People can say exactly what’s on their mind. It can actually be a very positive and empowering thing. With Generation Share, you share with the world the same type of information that you share with your friends, your classmates, your colleagues. In the past, you would have been ashamed to share so openly, but now it’s just all out there. And the decision point there is not whether or not to share, but rather how much do you want to share.
Exactly, the same way that I posted my Brazilian wax photos on my Facebook account.
Veca: But you can also share in the most positive and life-affirming ways, in ways that will enrich other people, open their eyes and maybe help them see things in a new light.
Pinoys seem to have jumped on the social networking bandwagon — with Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, Plurk, Multiply — faster than other countries. Does my observation have a basis?
Pao: In the Southeast Asian market, the Philippines’ Facebook users is second only to that of Indonesia’s (which has a larger population). I think it’s innate for Pinoys to be grouping together. It is so natural for us to be connecting with friends and family who are not proximate to you. Since we have a lot of overseas Pinoys, our country is the perfect place to launch social network products like Friendster or Facebook that connect people.
Bunny: What I find fascinating is that although we embrace technology, our use of technology is very simple. For example, we use text messaging in a very social way: To chat, to make chica. It really speaks of our culture and how technology is just an enabler of the fundamental value that we have as Pinoys, which is to connect.
To ‘Sosyal’ or not to ‘Sosyal’
In the early 2000s, the question cropped up as to whether or not the Internet and, by extension, these social networking sites actually improved or worsened people’s socialization skills. Sometimes the Internet lets you connect with another person online, but there is no true connection between the both of you.
Pao: That was the objection raised by many Internet critics. However, one of the trends in Generation Y, which crosses over to Generation Share, is that there is now more real life social interaction. There’s a study that shows that the more that people share and stay online, the more they actually go offline and meet with their friends and interact with the real world. This is now a major global trend called “mass-mingling.” Because of people’s online use, they’re more eager to actually go out and find reasons to be with real people. And this doesn’t preclude the fact that they already interact with other people online.
Bunny: I think that perspective is relative based on what generation is asking the question and who is making the judgment with regard to the use of the internet. For me, the internet may dampen the social skills of people. But that’s me! Because I was born into a generation where social interaction was really face-to-face. But who am I to judge this generation? Who knows, in the future we will find out that this is the best way to interact socially. Maybe we are re-defining social interaction.
Pao: Here’s a perfect example for Generation Share. My friend and I were attending a meeting in the same room, then I sent him a message through my Blackberry cellphone. We were not talking face-to-face, but we were communicating through our cellphones even if we were in the same room. Was the use of a cellphone to communicate impersonal? No one can really say if what we were doing was being anti-social. But during that time, that was the best way for my friend and I to communicate given the context.
Social networking sites have the propensity to make people share so much of themselves — whether mundane or life-changing — online. But why are there many instances where people tend to overshare about themselves (God knows I don’t want really want to know what you had for breakfast every day). Why do we want to share every minutiae of our lives online? And, corollary to that, why do some of us want to follow the minutiae of someone else’s life?
Bunny: I think that that’s simply human nature. The only difference is that, presently, there is a platform to share in such a manner. Remember back in school, there was that person who – utang ng loob (Uhhm, God have mercy on us?) - would share even the most trivial of things with you, or share their whole life story with you? The person whom you try to avoid but who would share so much information, their feelings, the details of their lives with you anyway? There are still people like that, and that kind of sharing still happens, but this time it’s technology-mediated.
Hold on, I’m tweeting that I have to scratch an unmentionable body part while I am talking to you.
Bunny: I don’t think this is because of technology. But it is just the evolution of us as human beings in relation to technology. We’re tsismoso (gossip mongers) by nature because we’re all social beings. But right now, it’s even easier to become social beings.
Do you tsismosos think that the popularity of reality tv shows has led to our desire to express ourselves all the frigging time?
Pao: People share for different reasons. Some people send out the most nonsensical stuff whether they have an audience or not. There are people who have little or no followers on Twitter, but they continue to tweet away. These are the Generation Share who want to share as a form of self-expression. But sharing can also be done as a way to boast — I’ve done this or I’ve tried that. And then the number of followers gives you a “badge value” with regard to the type of sharer that you are.
Bunny: Pop culture is “exploded” by the early adapters. For Generation Share, they were early adapters to these technologies while we Generation Xers were sheep when it came to these technologies. Generation Share really shares shamelessly, and they don’t need anybody to legitimize what they do. However, it’s the older generation who are trying to pass a value judgment on the legitimacy of sharing. For example, I used to “filter” out my family from my shout outs in Facebook. Then I realized that masmalala pa yung shout outs ng mga pamangkin ko (the shout outs of my nephews/nieces were even more shocking)! I was just legitimizing my sharing, but if you look at the early adapters — my nephews and nieces — they don’t do it! It’s just natural for them to share the way they share.
To Be Young And Online
Just how is it like to be a teenager growing up in a generation where almost anything can be downloaded from the Internet, where you can contact almost anybody as long as they are online, and where almost none of them know what a walkman is?
Pao: Since everything is so convenient for them and they have so many options, Generation Share’s expectations are higher. And because everything is convenient, they tend to get impatient. For example, if they want to get a particular MP3 song, it is so easy for them to get it. If it takes them a relatively hard time to go through the process of downloading an MP3 from a website, they will get annoyed.
Veca: They also have a certain feeling of entitlement, which isn’t necessarily positive or negative. They are just used to things coming to them as quickly as a keystroke or the press of a button.
Bunny: But we don’t want to sound like our generation is passing judgment on them (Laughs). If you ask them, they will say that they feel normal. I’m sure that my parents felt that we were impatient, too.
This new age of social networking is your proverbial double-edged sword. I think it has expanded this generation’s ability to multi-task, what with several social networking sites open on your computer while you are texting on the cellphone. But, at the same time, it has also led to continuous partial attention — where we aren’t really able to focus on one task at a time. How do you guys feel about that?
Bunny: There was a quantitative study done here in the Philippines that revealed that the brains of the younger generation have evolved to perform multi-tasking in a very efficient and effective way. You see people watching TV while updating Facebook or sharing photos and texting. Their media consumption is already 36 hours in a day because of multi-tasking.
What!? More than 24 hours? This younger generation are mutants!
Bunny: In that same study, there was a test where a group was assigned to complete a task in a serial way and asked not to multi-task. They were unable to do so because their brains were configured to multi-task. Generation Share is much better at coping with new technology coupled with the explosion of information. We might pass judgment on them by saying that they share shamelessly, but who knows? Maybe that is the way to go.
What would Spider-man do?
Like Uncle Ben told Peter Parker, “With great power comes great responsibility.” We’ve borne witness to how social networking can be a powerful and constructive tool the way it was used in such tragedies as the Haiti earthquake and our very own Typhoon Ondoy. But we’ve also seen how, in misguided hands, these tools can destroy a group or an individual’s reputation merely on hearsay. In the Generation Share era, are there any guidelines to ensure that we all of us share responsibly and constructively?
Bunny: I believe it is the responsibility of my generation to pass on the values of decency to the next generation. And Generation Share should assimilate those values with the way that they are coping with technology. In the context of sharing online, it’s still my responsibility to share with my nephews and nieces the importance of propriety and integrity.
Pao: That’s also the beauty of the evolution of Generation Share: Users themselves are policing their own ranks. There once was a question that was posed to bloggers: Is there a need for a regulatory body for the blogging community? And they agreed that there was no need for that. Why? Let’s say that there is an obscene blog that comes out. It is the community that will police that blogger. The blog will naturally die if it doesn’t conform to the expectations of the community that it belongs to. So there isn’t a threat of values not being passed on to the online community.
Veca: They say, “It takes a village to raise a child.” With everybody being so connected and the Internet making things a level playing field, it’s easy for anybody to police you and guide you in the most positive way. With the older generation, you would get guidance from your parents and friends. In this generation, you can get it from just about everyone, even from strangers because they could also have something valuable to teach you.
Pao: Do you remember during the height of Ondoy, there was an OFW based in Dubai who allegedly made unsavory remarks about the Philippines? When the online community caught wind of it, she immediately became infamous. The community started following her story. Later on, they found out that the OFW’s account had been hacked. That is an example of people in social media policing other people who are not following these norms, even if these are unwritten norms.
Veca: Regardless of how you communicate or who you’re communicating with, there’s still a set of principles that hopefully everybody learns to live by. Things like courtesy, decency and integrity. We should all be brought up to respect and observe those principles.
Finally, how do you see the further evolution of Generation Share in the country?
Bunny: I actually think it will be more of the same. I think we’ve adapted social networking technology to the best way possible based on the fundamental value of the Pinoy culture, which is the idea of connection.
Pao: We will continue to use technology to connect to our family and friends. Even as technologies converge — mobile devices, the iPad, the broadbanding of the Internet, Wimax service which makes internet easily available even in remote areas — and flatten the way we communicate, we will still be connecting with friends. But your experience of connection will be much more converged.
Veca: In a couple of years, I’d expect technology to be used in more world-changing ways. What’s great about Generation Share — apart from their being empowered, connected and technology-savvy — is that they are using technology to make a real difference. It’s easy to say, ‘I want to go out and change the world” but Generation Share actually has the tools to do it. Today, you can communicate with people whom you would never have been able to reach 20 years ago, so if you have a worthy cause, something you really believe in, you can mobilize a force of like-minded folks from around the globe. It’s now possible. This generation can finally say, “Hey, look at me. I’m going to do something big that will make the world a better place,” and then go out and actually do it.
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For more on Generation Share, visit http://www.globe.com.ph/tattoo.