William Straus and
Neil Howe's clustering of millennials based on birth years, the generational classification was referred to as Generation Y, and muddled the fair representation of those who experienced their adolescence and cognitive-development years in step with the nascent phase of home-based
Internet access technology.
While often lumped together with millennials (as defined by Straus and Howe), the developmental phase of social interaction, which involved information technology's burgeoning impact on society, was overlooked. Generation Y represented the crossroads between millennials who were well immersed in computer technology even as far as experiencing an institutionalization of
computer education in academic curricula and Generation X members who were heavily immersed in broadcast media's influence and yet largely uninitiated in computer technology. Generation Y represents the
link between the non-digital
age society shaped by Generation X, as adolescents (MTV Generation), and the
dawn of the
Internet age that saw the transitioning of society to easily accessible online communities (Bulletin board system, MIRC, Yahoo! Groups, Internet forum) especially during the introduction of dial-up
Internet access to households.
Gen Y entangled pop culture and digital community-building through bulletin board systems, online forums, website mailing groups, mIRC, ICQ, and other electronic modes of communication (predecessors to social media) into today's digital age.
