Author
Benjamin Jones
Millennials, the generation born between 1980 and 2000, are connected with technology as no generation has been before. And since they are estimated to make up 75 percent of the workforce and to have over $1 trillion in spending power in the United States alone by 2025, their attitudes about technology will impact the way service providers and technology vendors shape their services and products. This is the first in a series of blogs from millennials around the world opening up on how they use technology.
Hi, my name is Ben and I live in Tewkesbury, near Gloucestershire in the United Kingdom. Let me tell you a little bit about my digital life. Basically, I’m always connected. When I wake up in the morning, I’ll look at Facebook and check messages on WhatsApp and other services before I even get out of bed. I’m always checking my phone throughout the day. I notice that older people will ignore their phones when they don’t want to deal with them, or leave the phone on their desk and walk away – I never do that; I’d feel weird without my phone with me.
I use messaging apps like SnapChat and WhatsApp instead of e-mail. I usually ignore the e-mail because it’s often a lot of junk mail and I don’t get work e-mail on my phone. I use SnapChat, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger as the primary means of staying in contact with my friends. But if I need to reach someone even 10 years older I’ll use e-mail because that’s typically what they prefer.
What I like about SnapChat is that it doesn’t clog up your phone like e-mail. There’s no message to download and no having to tidy up your inbox all the time – messages appear on your screen and then they’re gone. And speaking of clogging up the phone, I wish my iPhone had more memory – I got the 16 Gb version to save money, but I’m always nearing the storage limit and I have to watch what I put on the phone. If I had it to do over, I’d get another model with more memory. Of course, I have 16 interactive games stored on my phone- and they take up a lot of memory.
I have a computer at home, but I haven’t turned it on in two months. Mostly I use my home’s broadband connection to drive my Wi-Fi router so I can use my smartphone and tablet. I have 35 megabits of broadband service now, and I’d be totally irritated if I couldn’t get at least 20 megabits.
I’ve been through three generations of iPhones without ever connecting them to my home computer – I’ve spent more on mobile technology over the years than I have on televisions.
You get used to what a phone can do pretty quickly, and I’m desperate for my phone to do more than it currently can. For example, I putPhotoshop Switch on my phone, and I was so excited when I saw that I could retouch photos on my phone. I’d like to be able to do more on my phone, but that would mean a having faster processor.
Despite using my phone all throughout the day, I have a relatively small data plans with my cellular provider. I have only 2 Gb per month, and I stay within that by jumping onto a Wi-Fi network whenever possible. I use Wi-Fi in the office, and in London, BT has Wi-Fi hotspots throughout the city. Trains have Wi-Fi, as does one of the popular bus lines. Naturally, I have Wi-Fi in my house as well.
I’ve embraced the digital lifestyle like most millennials, and I expect devices to keep improving with more features and more memory.
To learn more about Millennials and Baby Boomer use of technology, download the free report that highlights results from a recent global survey conducted by CommScope.
