While marketers tend to view millennials as a singular entity, a new study from Media Technology Monitor (MTM) suggests there are significant differences between the technology habits of older Gen Y millennials and their younger Gen Z counterparts.
The study, A Profile of Millennials’ Media Technology Adoption and Use, says millennials currently comprise about 30% of Canada’s Anglophone adults, with Gen Y (27 to 34-year-olds) comprising 15%, and Gen Z (18 to 26-year-olds) approximately 13%.
And while millennials of all ages share a fondness for “TV my way” and the use of over-the-top services such as Netflix (more than two thirds of Anglophones between 18 and 34 subscribe to the service), they also have different opinions of devices like tablets and wearable technology.
While nearly three fifths (60%) of Gen Y’s own a tablet, for example, that number falls to 47% for the Gen Z population (which is actually less than the 54% of Canadians 35+ who own a tablet device). The report says younger millennials might feel there is “less value” in owning a tablet, whose functionality mimics that of smartphones.
The study also finds members of Gen Z have not embraced wearable technology such as the Apple Watch or Fitbit, with only 9% saying they own a wearable device – compared to 20% of Gen Y’s and 14% of Canadian Anglophones over 35.
And while four in five millennials send or receive emails via their smartphone, the study finds members of Gen Y are 11% more likely to send or receive a text on their smartphone than their Gen Z counterparts.
Millennials as a whole have embraced social media (91% of Gen Z and 87% of Gen Y have visited a social networking site), though there are distinctions between which platforms they prefer.
Members of Gen Z, for example, are the biggest users of Instagram (47% versus 36% of Gen Y’s), Snapchat (47% versus 16%), Twitter (39% versus 29%) and Tumblr (19% versus 6%), while members of Gen Y are bigger users of Pinterest (30% versus 23%) and LinkedIn (36% versus 21%).
The study says the internet remains “by far” the biggest source of content for millennials, who report spending more than 30 hours per week online – triple the time they spend watching traditional TV and listening to traditional radio combined.
Gen Z watches an average of 3.8 hours of TV on a traditional TV set each week, compared to 7.4 hours for Gen Y and 14.4 hours for Canadians 35+. The report also notes “virtually all” millennials – 99% of Gen Z and 96% of Gen Y, respectively – are watching online videos.
Members of Gen Z consume approximately 15 hours of online video in a typical week, compared with 14.3 hours for Gen Y and 10 hours for Canadians 35+.
Millennials also regard Netflix as a source of TV content, with 88% of Gen Z and 84% of Gen Y saying they access series on the streaming service. Millennials consume roughly two-and-a-half hours more Netflix content than older Canadians.
Younger millennials are also comfortable consuming TV content on their smartphone, with 52% of Gen Z and 50% of Gen Y saying they view content in this manner.
Online audio is similarly important to millennials, with 96% of Gen Z and 90% of Gen Y saying they listen to streaming audio, compared with 57% of Canadians 35+. The study says YouTube is a “vital” source of streaming audio, used by 92% of Gen Z and 82% of Gen Y (compared with 43% of Canadians 35+).
Podcasts are also hugely popular with millennials, with 35% of Gen Z and 39% of Gen Y saying they listen to them, compared with just one fifth of older Canadians. The smartphone is the “device of choice” for online listening, used by 78% of Gen Z and 75% of Gen Y, respectively.
Members of Gen Z spend approximately 12.4 hours per week listening to online audio, more than three times that of older Canadians (3.8 hours).
The results are based on a survey of 6,308 Anglophones from all regions, and are considered accurate within plus or minus 1.2% percentage points 19 times out of 20.
