In 2002, Maine became the first state to implement a statewide laptop program to some grade levels. Then-governor Angus King saw the program as a way to put the internet at the fingertips of more children, who would be able to immerse themselves in information.
By that fall, the Maine Learning Technology Initiative had distributed 17,000 Apple laptops to seventh graders across 243 middle schools. By 2016, those numbers had multiplied to 66,000 laptops and tablets distributed to Maine students.
King’s initial efforts have been mirrored across the country. In 2024, the U.S. spent more than $30 billion putting laptops and tablets in schools. But more than a quarter-century and numerous evolving models of technology later, psychologists and learning experts see a different outcome than the one King intended. Rather than empowering the generation with access to more knowledge, the technology had the opposite effect.
There was the silent generation between the greatest and boomers.
And in general, it depends on the individual families and how old they were when they had kids. A generation, though poorly defined, spans less than 20 years of birthdates. So some teenage parents, if they were born in the early part of their generation, could have kids that fall in the same generation, late teens or 20s for the next gen, and 30s or 40s to skip a generation (or two). And adjust the ages if the parents are born later in the generation.
Like a boomer born in 1960 who didn’t have a child until they were 40 would have skipped both gen x and millenials if the millennial cutoff is remembering 9/11.