cafebabel.com, ten years of generational citizen media…but of which generation?

Photo: (cc)Ryan Yam/flickr

Call us ‘precarious’, sling that ‘hyper-connected’ stick at us. Oh yes did we mentioned we are ‘facebook addicts’? After Generation X, we’re ‘Generation Y’, but we don’t know WHY. The one thing we know is that it is ‘our generation’, though it seems our parent’s generation know us better than we know ourselves. Theirs was a heady mix of communism, addictions, and more face-to-face interaction. Just look at the cinema marking our generation, which hasn’t fully tried to depict an era of erasmus, facebook, budget flights or lifelong internships. Whilst one notable French activist-cum-politician rues the lack of a new generation with a voice, we try to go looking for what the current generation is about

REVIEW Book review Germany: 'degree Facebook internship' generation

Book review Germany: 'degree Facebook internship' generation

Generation X became generation Y and the ‘internship generation’ is a recurring topic. However, whichever letters or titles are selected for it, no one can really get a hold on us. Can we really all be lumped together, technically-speaking, in terms of a generation? German writers Manuel J. Hartung and Cosima Schmitt asked themselves this question in a 2010 book  analysing the difficult future of a generation with no name

by Lukas Ley @ // 24/03/11

university, students, eurogeneration, precarity, bologna process, youth, society, books

ANALYSIS Erasmus, 9/11, social networks mark unnamed eighties generation

Erasmus, 9/11, social networks mark unnamed eighties generation

We're more used to typing on a computer keyboard than to putting pen to paper. It's hard to define our generation - generation google, generation Y,  the lost generation... Young people between 20 and 35 have always been connected to a whole world which has little in common to that of their parents. Analysts and victims of this incertitude present the key facts needed to understand this unknown generation

by Laura Prieto @ // 28/01/11

budget, facebook, lifestyle, ecology, 11m, society, social networks

ANALYSIS Psychology of Europe's youth: generation ‘no subject’

Psychology of Europe's youth: generation ‘no subject’

Today's young generations in Europe seem traumatised by emptiness – the lack of perspectives and opportunities, goals, aspirations. No better comparison than the metaphor of an email without a title, says one young volunteer youth organisation counsellor and psychology graduate

by Luciana Grosu @ , English language version of cafebabel.com @ // 26/01/11

eurogeneration, psychology, youth, society

INTERVIEW French activist Julien Bayou on Europe's youth: 'Obvious to see why you’d be disenchanted'

French activist Julien Bayou on Europe's youth: 'Obvious to see why you’d be disenchanted'

Today’s precarious youth can just about pay their rent and have to make do with internships or makeshift ‘contracts’. This activist and politician has worked on speaking about the elephant in the room. Meet the unwitting 30-year-old ‘official face’ of a generation in difficulty, who we meet at a renowned squat in Paris

by Katharina Kloss @ // 26/01/11

eurogeneration, julien bayou, politics, squat, precarity, society, paris, nicolas sarkozy

FOCUS Ireland’s expat-emigrants: silver spoon diaspora

Ireland’s expat-emigrants: silver spoon diaspora

Thousands left Ireland when it was rollicking at the dizzy heights of an economic boom, and when ‘diaspora’ sounded like a chapter heading from Angela’s Ashes. Now that the country has all but gone bust, those who left in the good times have been transformed from ‘expat’ to ‘immigrant’ overnight. In 2010 they were joined by 65, 000 others fleeing the Republic’s economic collapse

by Tim Mac an Airchinnigh @ // 25/01/11

economy, students, travel, youth, society

VOX POP Editors parents speak: Generations 1950 and 1960 on Generation 1980

Editors parents speak: Generations 1950 and 1960 on Generation 1980

A generation separates us. The space of two decades allows our parents an affectionate but criticial vision on our generation, born in the eighties. From video games and unemployment to travel and money, time for one last pan-European lecture

by cafebabel.com @ // 25/01/11

money, eurogeneration, unemployment, parents, safety and security at work , society, social networks

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