Marketers always try to put a group of adolescents into a generation archetype on the lines of the baby boomers. How far such slotting is correct is a moot point, but the fact remains that a teenager of today is really in a different environment from the one that prevailed some ten years back. Each generation has some unique characteristics, some of which may have been borrowed from the previous generations. Generation X was a generation in the 1970s. The Vietnam war had ended and the US was exposed to the Watergate scandal. Generation Z is a product of Generation X. The elders focused on the safety and security of their children. They lacked it. Through the 1920s and 1940s, there was the so-called Silent Generation that was shaped by war and the Great Depression. They believed in hard work and were career-minded. This grown up generation we had seen in the 1950s and 1960s. Gen Yers grew up to be the Facebook users who were bold enough to post openly whatever they felt. Millenials were raised in the relatively peaceful times of the 1990s, but they witnessed two catastrophic events in 2000 and 2008. Millenials are brash and narcissistic. They pioneered the Facebook selfie. Their innocence was lost. Generation Z is grown after the millennials, say the early 1990s to mid 2000s. Perhaps a Generation Z youngster is bracketed in a block of 15 years, starting from1996. They are thus 5-19 years old now. They form a huge size in the US as well as in India. They have remained close to technology of Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook. It is the first generation with the smart phones. They have not seen times without the social media. Advertising to them must be short and pithy, say in five words, and with a big picture or else the message will be lost

Generation Z is not like the brash millennials. They understand their privacy and personal space. They have good spending power. They are a matter of study for the market researchers, cultural observers and trend forecasters.