We were the babies who grew up without the internet and went on to find online jobs.

If you were born between 1977 and 1983, you belong to a group being re-defined as Xennials.

We had analogue childhoods, wedged between Gen X and Millennials, and adapted to a digital revolution in adulthood. Xennials are a mix between the so-called pessimistic Gen X and optimistic Millennials, says TR Ashworth Associate Professor of Sociology at the university of Melbourne Dan Woodman.

“The idea is there’s this micro or in-between generation between the Gen X group – who we think of as the depressed flannelette-shirt-wearing, grunge-listening children that came after the Baby Boomers and the Millennials – who get described as optimistic, tech savvy and maybe a little bit too sure of themselves and too confident,” Professor Woodman told Mamamia. 

Woodman is a Xennial, born in 1980, and during his Canberran high school years he memorised landline phone numbers and watched prime-time TV. 

Although he warns an entire cohort of people won’t have one value set or one set of dispositions, Xennials did grow up during a unique time. "Around technology they do have a particular experience – we hit this social media and IT digital technology boom in our 20s," said Associate Professor Woodman.

"It was a particularly unique experience. You have a childhood, youth and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones. It was a time when we had to organise to catch up with our friends on the weekends using the landline, and actually pick a time and a place and turn up there.  

"Then we hit this technology revolution before we were maybe in that frazzled period of our life with kids and no time to learn anything new. We hit it where we could still adopt in a selective way the new technologies," he added.

Woodman started his first email account after he finished high school. He sent emails, letters and post-cards during his gap year travelling.