The purpose of this experiment was three-fold:
- To determine if you can define a person's generation based on the age they got their first cell phone and whether or not it was a smartphone.
- To define the existence and range of the cusp microgeneration "Zillennials" between Millennials and Gen Z based on the above criteria.
- To study other relationships between a person's first cell phone and the generation they identify with.
I posted a survey to several online communities and received 509 responses. There were four questions in the survey:
- What year did you get your first cell phone?
- Was your first cell phone a smartphone?
- What year were you born?
- What generation do you consider yourself to be a part of?
After a first round of analysis, I used the following criteria to define the two main generations (Millennials and Gen Z) and the third microgeneration (Zillennials):
Millennials got their first cell phone when they were 13 or later and it was not a smartphone.
Zillennials got their first cell phone before they were 13 and it was not a smartphone.
Zoomers got their first cell phone before they were 13 and it was a smartphone.
Note that any respondents who did not fall under these three sets of criteria were not categorized into a generation, thus why the percents do not sum to 100%.
You can see that the Millennial generation dominates from 1990 (and before, but the beginning of this generation is not being analyzed here) to 1995. The Zillennial microgeneration dominates from 1996 to 2001, with 2002 being unclear. Generation Z dominates from 2003 to 2008 (and beyond, but the end of this generation is not being analyzed here).
Further analysis will be conducted.