The name “Generation Jones” has several connotations, including: a large anonymous generation, and a “Keeping up with the Joneses” competitiveness borne from this generation’s populous birth years. The connotation, however, which is perhaps best known stems from the slang word “jones” or “jonesing”, which means a yearning or craving. Jonesers were the people who as teens in the 1970’s made this slang word popular, but beyond this historical claim, many believe the concept of jonesing is among this generation’s key collective personality traits. Jonesers were given huge expectations as children in the optimistic 1960’s, and then confronted with a different reality as they came of age in the pessimistic 1970’s, leaving them with a certain unrequited, jonesing quality.

In demographic terms, Generation Jones was part of the baby boom which ended in the early 1960s. However, the events stereotypically associated with generational discussion of Boomers, including protests over civil rights and the Vietnam war and the emergence of rock music took place while the members of Generation Jones were still children or early teenagers. This is the situation described by Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious, who said that he had missed the Summer of Love because he was too busy playing with his Action Man. Thus the early life experience of this group was more similar, in many respects, to that commonly imputed to Generation X. Generation Jones is thus associated with such pop icons such as Pong, the “Walkman”, Rubik’s Cube and MTV.

This age group became politically active in the United States during the Presidential campaigns of Ronald Reagan, who was extremely popular among people of this age group. “The turn toward the Republicans was based very much on how the young felt about Ronald Reagan’s performance in office,” said Helmut Norpoth, a political scientist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In the 2008 election, surveys found that fans of classic rock music, popular during this period, tended to favor the Republicans.

Generation Jones has been the recipient of extensive media attention. It has been written about in hundreds of newspapers and magazines and discussed frequently on TV and radio shows. Pontell appears regularly on TV networks such as CNN, MSNBC, and the BBC, discussing the cultural, political, and economic implications of this generation’s emergence.

In the business world, Generation Jones has become a part of the strategic planning of many companies and industries, particularly in the context of targeting Jonesers through marketing efforts. Numerous industries have created new products and brands to specifically target Jonesers, like the radio industry, which has created “GenJones” radio formats.

Politically, Generation Jones has emerged as a crucial voting segment in Western elections. In the U.S. 2006 Midterm and 2004 Presidential elections, and the 2005 U.K. elections, Generation Jones’ electoral role was widely described as pivotal by the media and political pollsters. In the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, Generation Jones was again seen as a key electoral segment, partly because of its large size as almost a third of all voters, and because of the high degree to which its members were swing voters during the election cycle. Influential journalists like Clarence Page and Peter Fenn] singled out Generation Jones voters as crucial in the final weeks of the campaign.