Read the full transcript of pioneering iGen and Millennials researcher Jason Dorsey’s talk titled “What Do We Know About The Generation After Millennials?” at TEDxHouston 2025 conference.
TRANSCRIPT:
Introduction: Challenging Generational Assumptions
A lot of what we believe about generations isn’t true. It’s a good story, but it’s not necessarily true. What I want to do in the time we have is bring to life what research shows us is true.
So how many of you woke up this morning? Come on, where’s my people? All right, just checking. And how many of you woke up this morning and the first thing you did is you reached for your cell phone? Come on, like most of us? How many of you slept with your cell phone last night?
Like you, I woke up this morning with my phone. And I called my daughter, which I do every single day when I’m on the road. I called her from this iPhone right here using FaceTime. Moms, parents, we know what FaceTime is for.
This morning I’m talking with her, she’s talking with me. We have this whole conversation going on. My daughter is four years old. She will never remember a time before you could look at the person on the phone while you were talking to them. In her belief system, what is true, what makes the world right, you will always have been able to see the person on the phone while you were talking with them.
That is how the phone works! The phone is broken if she can’t see you. What was the cartoon where you could see the person you were talking to? The Jetsons, right? She will think the Jetsons is about the past.
Technology Is Only New If You Remember It Otherwise
What we discovered at our research center is technology is only new if you remember it the way it was before. Otherwise, that’s all you know. That’s the only way she knows to use a phone. If she picks up a landline, which we don’t have one in our house, but if she did, the dial tone freaks her out.
As we think about this generation after millennials, which is who we study, we start to discover trends that you and I need to know. And the reason is this.
We believe that the generation after millennials, we call them iGen, will end up looking more like iGen than they will end up looking like us. Which means they’ll affect all of us.
In fact, what we discovered is 7-year-olds today in the US may have more in common with 7-year-olds in India than a 65-year-old in their own country.
The Compression of Generations
As we study generations, what we see is that the pace of change, the rate of change continues to increase, and what we believe is going to happen is that instead of 3 or 4 generations in the workforce, or as customers, or in a room like this, we believe we’re going to end up with 6, maybe 7 different generations at one time.
Because generations are going to get shorter, they’re going to get more compressed. Because what we’re looking for are not birth years, everybody wants to give you birth years, what we’re looking for are behaviors. Predictability by scenario.
That’s a generation. Now we use the birth years, we use geography as a framework for it, but a lot of what we believe to be true isn’t necessarily accurate.
Introducing iGen
This generation, we call them iGen, like iPhone, iPad. Apple, please don’t sue me, we didn’t trademark it. But they’re iEverything. My daughter was potty trained using an iPad, watching Dora the Explorer. That’s what made her go to the bathroom.
We call them iGen, other people call them Gen Z, Centennials, different names, bottom line, same exact generation. What I want to share with you is, what do we need to know about them if they’re largely going to predict our future?
At our center, the Center for Generational Kinetics, all we do is study generations. How they’re created, where they’re trending, how do we get ahead of them? We help companies grow faster, we keep employees, we drive innovation, we get your kids to text you back.
Defining Generational Boundaries
As we look at that, we want to see the trends that shape a generation, but also the ones that don’t shape a generation. How many of you have heard a speaker on millennials before?
Well, these speakers running around saying, “Oh, millennials, they’re born 1980 to 2000.” Okay, so we ask them, why do you say that? Well, 20 years, that doesn’t mean anything.
What’s the most important event that shaped millennials? 9-11. What year was that? 2001, right? You cannot be born after 1995 and process the significance of September the 11th, 2001, in the way those born before 1995 do. End of story! Your brain’s too young, you can’t put it in any context.
If 9-11 has always been history to you, you are not a millennial. You’re iGen. If it didn’t stop you in your tracks, you could tell me about the JFK assassination, but I would never experience it in the way you did. That’s the point. If it doesn’t change you, it’s not part of your generation in those formative years.
So we look at roughly 1996 to present for iGen.
Three Key Trends Shaping iGen
# 1. Diversity
The number one trend that people don’t talk about, that we believe will have a profound impact on all of us with this new generation, is diversity.
iGen is the most diverse generation in U.S. history. In fact, they are so diverse, they do not see diversity unless it’s absent.
My wife’s Hispanic. She has 52 first cousins. I have six. But I’m very sensitive to it now, because my daughter has big brown eyes and big brown hair, and she stands out in all the school photos.
My daughter will never remember a time before there was an African-American president. That’s normal.
She will never remember a time before gay marriage. It’s not that it will be an issue or a non-issue. It will be the past.
Imagine how that affects things like voting, all this stuff that we’re talking about. Because diversity is what’s normal to you.
# 2. Technology
The second trend that we’re looking at is technology, but I want you to think differently about it. There’s all this conversation that millennials are tech savvy, right? Well, we came out hard against that and said, no, millennials are not tech savvy. What we actually are, we are tech dependent.
We don’t know how technology works. We just know we cannot live without it. And that’s a big difference.
Technology for millennials, when we talk to brands and employers, is about how do we enhance the digital experience? For iGen, it’s the opposite. Technology is the experience. If you’ve always gone to Amazon and had your stuff delivered within two hours, you have no context for having to go to the grocery store.
# 3. Parenting
A third trend, one of my personal favorites and the most controversial I’ll share, is parenting.
Millennials, our parents were baby boomers. And baby boomers had a distinct parenting philosophy that absolutely came back to haunt them.
But what nobody talks about is that the generation that is parenting iGen are Gen X and millennials. My wife is Gen X, I’m a millennial.
The Millennial Split
What nobody’s talking about that we discovered at our center is that millennials are splitting. In the U.S., millennials are 79.8 million, born about 1977 to 1995, roughly. What we believe is happening is the generation is actually splitting.
It’s breaking in two, and you’re ending up with two different trajectories. One part of the generation is doing everything we were told we were supposed to do. Statistically, we’re doing it two to three years later than other generations. We’re getting married later, we’re having kids later, all these things. We’re still doing it, though.
There’s another part of the generation that’s not creating what we call real-world traction. For some reason, we don’t know why yet, around the age of 30, you self-select into one part of the generation or the other, and you can no longer relate to the other part of your own generation.
The group most offended by millennials acting entitled are other millennials who do not feel entitled. Because they’re giving the rest of us a bad reputation.
Now, what does this mean to iGen? If you’re 35 years old with a kid or two, and you’re on your own, do you parent differently than the 30 or 35-year-old with the same number of kids who still lives with their mom? I don’t have the answer, but I want to ask the question.
Parenting is the greatest trend that influences behaviors across generations.
Generational Change Is Rippling Up
What I want you to notice is generations, the change that we’re looking for, is actually rippling up rather than down. All of us were taught that generations start at the top, oldest, and they go down to youngest. But what we’re seeing now is it’s starting with the youngest and moving up.
Let me prove it. My daughter’s born. Very excited. My daughter’s name is Raya. She’s named after my great-grandmother. I’m taking photos. I’m putting them on Facebook, right? And then my mom’s there.
Now grandma’s very excited. She’s like, “Oh, when am I going to get to hold the photos?” I’m like, “Mom, I’ve already put them on Facebook.” She’s like, “Well, how am I going to hold the photos?” I’m like, “Here’s my phone, Mom.”
So my mom had to join Facebook. Eventually she finds her old high school sweetheart. And now grandma’s on Facebook more than me. She’s on Facebook so much, I’m leaving. And I post the party. I’m at the TEDx afterparty. What happens? Grandma likes it. And then she comments, “Oh, it looks like you’re having so much fun. Be safe. If you need a ride, call me.”
What I want you to notice is it started with the youngest and spread to the oldest. Older generations are finally starting to look more like younger generations. The greatest predictor of the future of older generations are what the younger generations are doing today.
Why This Matters
iGen will put many companies out of business. You want me to come buy a car? You want me to drive there? That’s weird. You think we’re going to go to a bank? Yeah, like we got cash.
The gentleman that spoke before me, 16 years old, blew my mind with the drone business. He’s 16, and that’s my point. We’ve had people on this stage from 60-something to 16, and every one of them has had something great to offer.
What we believe is that the conversation around generations is backwards. It’s all about differences. This timeless generational friction. The young people look at the old people and go, “You’re outdated! What do you do with that flip phone?” And the older generation’s looking at the young people going, “You don’t know anything. You don’t have any experiences. You don’t use commas.”
What we believe at our center is that we need to change the conversation and recognize the fact that every single generation brings something that’s important and necessary.
The issues and challenges we’re facing today are too big and too important for us not to focus on our generational strengths rather than our differences.
It’s personal to me because my daughter’s four years old. When I go home and see her tonight, when I look at her, I see her generation. I think about the future that we all want for everyone that we know and love, and even those we don’t. And what I want to ask for you is to help me to work across generations to unlock all of our strengths.
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