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You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Stacy Vanick Smith is a columnist for Bloomberg Business Week. She's the co host of the Everybody's Business podcast. She writes about the very grown up spending power of Jen Alpha. She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's Studio. So, Carol mentioned the criticisms of this generation, and we'll talk about this as you put out on your piece. They came of age during the pandemic, there's this strange relationship with technology people.
Right about the.
Criticism, but wait, okay, there's also strengths, and they have a lot of strengths, so talk about those before we talk about the criticism.
I'm well, it's interesting because I feel like the strengths and the weaknesses go hand in hand a little bit.
So you're exactly right.
A lot of these kids came of age and experienced big life milestones during the pandemic inside through screen. So as a result of that, there are issues with socialization. Also, learning was much more difficult, and we were all kind
of trying to find our footing. But at the same time, there's a lot this generation shows itself to be very good at teamwork, also very entrepreneurial because a lot of games like Minecraft and Roadblocks, like they have worlds inside of worlds where businesses can be built and things like that, And because social media can give people such a huge platform so fast. A lot of these very young I mean I almost even hesitate to call them kids, but
a lot of these kids have huge audiences. They can develop products and and put them out on a world stage. I mean, it's just really impressive.
It's impressing, but it's all it's impressive, impressing. It's also daunting to me.
Yeah, why, well.
It's daunting to me for a few reasons. I don't love the idea that in order to be successful we have to have these big online presences. Yeah, and I see this and like, you know, my social media feed, which of course I try to keep it away from my kids, but like my social media feed, like there are kids whose parents are clearly enabling them to become creators and like want to be influencers and stuff, And I just wonder, like, what are we doing to them in that process.
I mean, I think it's it's a double edged sword for sure. I mean the screen time of the Alphas is pretty major. Kids under eight are spending at least like two and a.
Half hours on average, way less than their parents.
Yes, but it's still quite a bit of screen time during very formative years. At the same time, a lot of like agility with technology could be a real strength in AI coming into the workplace right now at a time of great transformation. But also I talked to one woman who started a jewelry business with her father, this
jewelry business, Gunner in lux. She was only five and she was making jewelry out of her plastic toys and her dad put picktures of it on Instagram, and then she was doing deals with Barney's and it's like it's pretty amazing.
Yeah, they sell thousands of pieces of jewelry. Now I got her inlocks.
Well, you do wonder like you know, generational shifts, right, and when you have a general like we talked about this all the time about I have a daughter who's twenty three, and she's like, yeah, I kind of missed some of the obsessiveness with like phones and stuff. Although the phone is really important to her. But you do wonder about a generation that grows up this way and how they shape our economy and society going forward.
Yes, and this generation is very perhaps you can talk about this a little bit with your kids, very outspoken. Apparently they direct way more money within their family than earlier generations, So a hundred about billion dollars in direct spending power, I mean between ages one and sixteen, one hundred million dollars in the US of direct spending power.
Apparently these kids just have.
A huge say over travel, food, streaming services, just a much bigger voice that I mean, when I was growing up, my parents did not console me on any purchases I or even like what to watch on TV.
Firt I think they were right, I will say.
I mean they also think they were right. But a lot of times the shows I was watching, it was like when my dad got home, we would watch a boxing match. Actual, yes, end of story. No, you're you're absolutely right.
There has been a shift in terms of kids involvement, and I saw it even in my household of just conversations about spending money and what we're doing, and like it was kind of I don't know if that's happening. Your kids are young.
My seven year old did tell us this week because it's school break right now and a lot of his friends are on vacation, he said, we should have gone on vacation this week. No, yes, so thank you for the feedback. Where should we Where should we have taken this vacation? And he said to California because then I can wear shorts. And I said, that's actually that makes sense. You want to go somewhere warm. But we're not going on vacation this week. We're working.
I don't know, you know, are these is this the alphas are that you have a lot of are uniquely positioned to help older generations discover and navigate different things like I just so good? Are like how are you having done this story? And talked to different folks like is this a good thing? Like what?
Like?
What's like? Where do we go with this?
I ended up coming away thinking it was a good thing. But there's a lot of anxiety already. I mean, I think the say this generation is probably the most kind of fretted over and poked and product of any generation. Because of the pandemic. They're being measured all the time. There's already all of this anxiety over them entering the workforce because a lot of teachers have gone online saying these kids have no discipline, they don't listen, they don't
respect authority, and so of course this has spawned. I mean, alphas are just about to enter the workforce or have just barely entered.
But they were selling dewlery to Barney's or whatever the heck. It was like, yeah, mean, if you think about like that part, that seems like a huge plus.
I don't know, do you think that that we're talking about this generation differently than other generations have talked about new generations, like Millennials, like Gen Z.
I think we are definitely talking about them differently because I mean, I just think because of the moment we're in and because we all went through the pandemic and maybe in certain ways are still processing it both as an economy and a society, I think the kids became a focus because we could at least look at kids and worry about them and their experience even while we were still trying to process our own. So I think for that reason we look at this generation differently, like
how have they been shaped by this? Also, we're on the cusp of a huge technological revolution in the economy with AI, and this is the generation that's going to really grow up in.
That thirty seconds forty seconds. I do wonder at Stacy, is it you know, kids we always talk about being resilient, So is there a resiliency that they are coming out of the pandemic with or or a setback like I are we not quite sure yet.
I think there are definite setbacks.
I mean reading levels, math levels, Yes, a setback. I also think resiliency is a big, big issue too. Though they've they've undergone such enormous change and transformation, They've weathered the stormy. They're probably are able to adapt to shifts and huge changes than the rest of us were, simply because that is the water they grew up swimming in.
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