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Yes, lumping together a whole birth cohort in a single catch phrase is bound to fail. In the end, I don’t feel part of generation X, Y or Z. While I sense a trace of unity when meeting people with whom I share the birth year, I doubt that this connection transcends watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV at the same age.

What makes me a part of generation Y then (I am slightly too old for the instant accessers)? Other people define me as. Why do they do that? Because they want to express their alienation with people of my age through a concept that allows them to point their finger at exactly what it is that they just can’t understand about my generation.

So everytime a new generation term pops up, this might be a sign that society needs to categorize a group of people. In the US, all these instant messaging, virtual socializing, mobile web-browsing teenagers just begged for an evaluation of their generation. In comes director and photographer Michael Franzini and his project “One Hundred Young Americans.” Out comes: “Generation Instant Access.”

The project paints the portrait of a connected generation. Book and website provide photos, videos and texts of those young persons on the edge to adulthood who can’t remember what it was like before music was digital and everybody possessed a mobile phone. Michael Franzini selected the 100 adolescents on the basis of US census data; they represent the US society in it’s composition. Despite all the postmodern fragmentation and the post 9/11 bewilderment, one significant difference that marks this generation aroses:

Cell phones, the Internet, and instant messaging give these teenagers a brand-new level of freedom. Their social networks literally span the globe. (Franzini)

Maybe that is what leaves so many people bedazzled and baffled at the same time – the impatient notion of accessing everything anywhere anytime, hence the categorization as generation instant access.

Enjoy some impressions from the project!

A brief interview with Michael Franzini can be found here.

[Show as slideshow]