Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 2: Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Stacy Vanick Smith is a columnist for Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: She's the co host of the Everybody's Business podcast. She
Speaker 1: writes about the very grown up spending power of Jen Alpha.
Speaker 1: She joins us here in the Bloomberg Interactive Broker's Studio. So,
Speaker 1: Carol mentioned the criticisms of this generation, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about this as you put out on your piece. They
Speaker 1: came of age during the pandemic, there's this strange relationship
Speaker 1: with technology people.
Speaker 2: Right about the.
Speaker 1: Criticism, but wait, okay, there's also strengths, and they have
Speaker 1: a lot of strengths, so talk about those before we
Speaker 1: talk about the criticism.
Speaker 3: I'm well, it's interesting because I feel like the strengths
Speaker 3: and the weaknesses go hand in hand a little bit.
Speaker 2: So you're exactly right.
Speaker 3: A lot of these kids came of age and experienced
Speaker 3: big life milestones during the pandemic inside through screen. So
Speaker 3: as a result of that, there are issues with socialization. Also,
Speaker 3: learning was much more difficult, and we were all kind
Speaker 3: of trying to find our footing. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: there's a lot this generation shows itself to be very
Speaker 3: good at teamwork, also very entrepreneurial because a lot of
Speaker 3: games like Minecraft and Roadblocks, like they have worlds inside
Speaker 3: of worlds where businesses can be built and things like that,
Speaker 3: And because social media can give people such a huge
Speaker 3: platform so fast. A lot of these very young I
Speaker 3: mean I almost even hesitate to call them kids, but
Speaker 3: a lot of these kids have huge audiences. They can
Speaker 3: develop products and and put them out on a world stage.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just really impressive.
Speaker 1: It's impressing, but it's all it's impressive, impressing. It's also
Speaker 1: daunting to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why, well.
Speaker 1: It's daunting to me for a few reasons. I don't
Speaker 1: love the idea that in order to be successful we
Speaker 1: have to have these big online presences. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: see this and like, you know, my social media feed,
Speaker 1: which of course I try to keep it away from
Speaker 1: my kids, but like my social media feed, like there
Speaker 1: are kids whose parents are clearly enabling them to become
Speaker 1: creators and like want to be influencers and stuff, And
Speaker 1: I just wonder, like, what are we doing to them
Speaker 1: in that process.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's it's a double edged sword
Speaker 3: for sure. I mean the screen time of the Alphas
Speaker 3: is pretty major. Kids under eight are spending at least
Speaker 3: like two and a.
Speaker 2: Half hours on average, way less than their parents.
Speaker 3: Yes, but it's still quite a bit of screen time
Speaker 3: during very formative years. At the same time, a lot
Speaker 3: of like agility with technology could be a real strength
Speaker 3: in AI coming into the workplace right now at a
Speaker 3: time of great transformation. But also I talked to one
Speaker 3: woman who started a jewelry business with her father, this
Speaker 3: jewelry business, Gunner in lux. She was only five and
Speaker 3: she was making jewelry out of her plastic toys and
Speaker 3: her dad put picktures of it on Instagram, and then
Speaker 3: she was doing deals with Barney's and it's like it's
Speaker 3: pretty amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they sell thousands of pieces of jewelry. Now I
Speaker 2: got her inlocks.
Speaker 4: Well, you do wonder like you know, generational shifts, right,
Speaker 4: and when you have a general like we talked about
Speaker 4: this all the time about I have a daughter who's
Speaker 4: twenty three, and she's like, yeah, I kind of missed
Speaker 4: some of the obsessiveness with like phones and stuff. Although
Speaker 4: the phone is really important to her. But you do
Speaker 4: wonder about a generation that grows up this way and
Speaker 4: how they shape our economy and society going forward.
Speaker 3: Yes, and this generation is very perhaps you can talk
Speaker 3: about this a little bit with your kids, very outspoken.
Speaker 3: Apparently they direct way more money within their family than
Speaker 3: earlier generations, So a hundred about billion dollars in direct
Speaker 3: spending power, I mean between ages one and sixteen, one
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars in the US of direct spending power.
Speaker 2: Apparently these kids just have.
Speaker 3: A huge say over travel, food, streaming services, just a
Speaker 3: much bigger voice that I mean, when I was growing up,
Speaker 3: my parents did not console me on any purchases I
Speaker 3: or even like what to watch on TV.
Speaker 1: Firt I think they were right, I will say.
Speaker 2: I mean they also think they were right. But a
Speaker 2: lot of times the shows I was watching, it was
Speaker 2: like when my dad got home, we would watch a
Speaker 2: boxing match. Actual, yes, end of story. No, you're you're
Speaker 2: absolutely right.
Speaker 4: There has been a shift in terms of kids involvement,
Speaker 4: and I saw it even in my household of just
Speaker 4: conversations about spending money and what we're doing, and like
Speaker 4: it was kind of I don't know if that's happening.
Speaker 4: Your kids are young.
Speaker 1: My seven year old did tell us this week because
Speaker 1: it's school break right now and a lot of his
Speaker 1: friends are on vacation, he said, we should have gone
Speaker 1: on vacation this week. No, yes, so thank you for
Speaker 1: the feedback. Where should we Where should we have taken
Speaker 1: this vacation? And he said to California because then I
Speaker 1: can wear shorts. And I said, that's actually that makes sense.
Speaker 1: You want to go somewhere warm. But we're not going
Speaker 1: on vacation this week. We're working.
Speaker 4: I don't know, you know, are these is this the
Speaker 4: alphas are that you have a lot of are uniquely
Speaker 4: positioned to help older generations discover and navigate different things
Speaker 4: like I just so good? Are like how are you
Speaker 4: having done this story? And talked to different folks like
Speaker 4: is this a good thing? Like what?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 4: What's like? Where do we go with this?
Speaker 3: I ended up coming away thinking it was a good thing.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of anxiety already. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think the say this generation is probably the most kind
Speaker 3: of fretted over and poked and product of any generation.
Speaker 3: Because of the pandemic. They're being measured all the time.
Speaker 3: There's already all of this anxiety over them entering the
Speaker 3: workforce because a lot of teachers have gone online saying
Speaker 3: these kids have no discipline, they don't listen, they don't
Speaker 3: respect authority, and so of course this has spawned. I mean,
Speaker 3: alphas are just about to enter the workforce or have
Speaker 3: just barely entered.
Speaker 4: But they were selling dewlery to Barney's or whatever the heck.
Speaker 4: It was like, yeah, mean, if you think about like
Speaker 4: that part, that seems like a huge plus.
Speaker 1: I don't know, do you think that that we're talking
Speaker 1: about this generation differently than other generations have talked about
Speaker 1: new generations, like Millennials, like Gen Z.
Speaker 3: I think we are definitely talking about them differently because
Speaker 3: I mean, I just think because of the moment we're
Speaker 3: in and because we all went through the pandemic and
Speaker 3: maybe in certain ways are still processing it both as
Speaker 3: an economy and a society, I think the kids became
Speaker 3: a focus because we could at least look at kids
Speaker 3: and worry about them and their experience even while we
Speaker 3: were still trying to process our own. So I think
Speaker 3: for that reason we look at this generation differently, like
Speaker 3: how have they been shaped by this? Also, we're on
Speaker 3: the cusp of a huge technological revolution in the economy
Speaker 3: with AI, and this is the generation that's going to
Speaker 3: really grow up in.
Speaker 4: That thirty seconds forty seconds. I do wonder at Stacy,
Speaker 4: is it you know, kids we always talk about being resilient,
Speaker 4: So is there a resiliency that they are coming out
Speaker 4: of the pandemic with or or a setback like I
Speaker 4: are we not quite sure yet.
Speaker 2: I think there are definite setbacks.
Speaker 3: I mean reading levels, math levels, Yes, a setback. I
Speaker 3: also think resiliency is a big, big issue too. Though
Speaker 3: they've they've undergone such enormous change and transformation, They've weathered
Speaker 3: the stormy. They're probably are able to adapt to shifts
Speaker 3: and huge changes than the rest of us were, simply
Speaker 3: because that is the water they grew up swimming in.
Speaker 1: M m hm