Screenager
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Screenagers are technologically savvy young people. They are the first generation to grow up with television and computers at home, music downloads, instant messaging and cellular phones. Douglas Rushkoff first coined the term in his 1997 book Playing the Future.
Rushkoff argued that young people will have many advantages processing information and coping with change when they reach adulthood because they have used computers at home since early childhood. Their short attention span may be an advantage in coping with the huge mass of information that also bombards their elders.
The term has gained another, darker meaning, believed to have come from the song entitled Screenager by English rock band Muse. This definition refers to a teenager (usually but not exclusively female) who is said to be 'putting up a screen'. It describes a screenager as someone who is so phony and always surrounded, who has lost touch with their family and may or may not self-harm.
Screenagers may be considered a subtype of generation X and Y. A teenager that spent or currently spends a majority or considerable amount of time interacting with a screen would be considered a screenager.
Teenagers from the Silent Generation, Babyboomers and X or Y generation hooked on watching television or the latest films would not generally be considered screenagers because the term screenager implies willful interactiveness of the teen. Where non interactive screen observers used television as a replacement for empty lives, boredom or a way to fill time before doing what they really want to do; a screenager consciously preferred to interact with simulated worlds or with others via a simulated world or simply through a screen.
Generation X screenagers were the original gamers who spent most of their youth at the arcade or on their primitive home computers, Intellivision or Atari. Unlike the generation Y screenager the generation X screenagers did not interact with other humans through the screen until adulthood.
Generation Y teenagers are unique in that screen interactiveness more often than not was in response to another human. IM, chat rooms, e-mail and mobile phone use that for the most part replaces direct human contact is an indicator of the generation Y screenager.
Currently generation X and the contemporary generation Y screenagers interact for the most part in the same virtual space within the latest online games with little contention. Only in passing remarks due to obnoxious behavior in a forum or virtual world event can a rift be seen between the X and Y generations which is only in the form of stereotyping the offending avatar as being very young.
