JUDY WOODRUFF: Generation Next has grown-up in an explosion of new technology …with cell phones, text messaging, e-mail and instant messaging, all making it easier for them to stay in constant contact with friends and family. And many are doing just that. A Pew survey found nearly half of Gen Nexters talk to their parents every day.

JANE BUCKINGHAM: Every generation has felt, "Oh my parents don't understand me." In some ways this generation is closer to their parents. But I think their parents are more honest in saying: Hey, I don't have all the answers. You know what? I can't tell you exactly what to do. They'll say follow your passions, they'll say do what feels right for you. But again if you're a 17 year old, well what am I passionate about? I like Xbox, is that enough?

There are still fights. But I think they do listen to them, and they -- they want to be friends with them.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Who do you admire in public life? Do you have any heroes?

BRENDAN DOCHERTY: Maybe I would say Bill Gates -- because I definitely admire the way that his vision and his technology changed the way we live our lives, and especially what he's doing now with his philanthropy.

GENEVIEVE SPARLING: The people that I find to be my heroes are the people that are most influential in my life, are the people that I -- I see as people, I see how they treat other people, I see what they're like.

Gen Nexters create a life different from their parents'
JANE BUCKINGHAM: I don't think they have heroes. I think they wish they had more heroes. I think that hero is too big of a word for them. I think that its people who have qualities that they admire. Even heroes are flawed.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It's on to the South. While the region echoes with history, many young people we met seem to be creating a life different from what their parents knew.

It's Friday night at the Birmingham, Ala. home of Doan Phan and best friend, Alesha Hardin.

ALESHA HARDIN: Our personalities are a lot alike. We're like -- we got these personalities, you have to take it or leave it. Either you like us or you don't.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Twenty-two-year old Alesha juggles full time work coordinating volunteers for a Birmingham non-profit, with a full load of classes at the University of Alabama.

Did you always know you were going to college?

ALESHA HARDIN: Yes. I -- a lot of people in my family didn't even have the opportunity to vote. They didn't have the opportunity for education because they had to work. My great-grandparents were sharecroppers. So, their children worked at a very young age. And they didn't have the opportunity to get an education. I had the opportunity. So, I'm like, I'm doing this.

DOAN PHAN: I've always known I wanted to go to college. I like to learn. I like to read.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, 24-year-old Doan came to America at the age of three. A University of Alabama graduate, she now works as an X-ray technician.

How is life different for you than it was for your mom?

DOAN PHAN: It's like 20, 30 years ago, when a woman finished high school or when she finishes -- she gets to a certain age, it's just like, Okay, you're kind of expected -- to get married, start a family. I mean, it's not saying that we don't want to get married and we don't want to have a family. It's just saying that there's more options for women.

ALESHA HARDIN: When I went to work, it wasn't because I had to take care of someone other than myself. It was because I wanted to get a new outfit. Or I wanted to go somewhere. And just having the opportunity to work at such a young age and not have the thought in my head, "I need to put food on the table," is the hugest difference between me and my mother.

When I was 12, one of my classmates got pregnant. My mother was just like, is that the kind of life you want? You know that little girl is having a baby. And she's gonna have to be someone's mother. And she'd just go on and on and on. You're gonna have to pay for that. And it's gonna ruin your life if you do it so young. You're not gonna be ready to take care of the responsibilities.

JUDY WOODRUFF: What did you think about it?

ALESHA HARDIN: I was right along with her. Of course, I was tired of her saying it to me like every five minutes. But, I was right along with her. My parents never talked to me about the birds and the bees. They didn't tell you how not to get pregnant. They didn't tell you what to do. You just better not.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, how did you learn?

ALESHA HARDIN: I --

DOAN PHAN: Through --

ALESHA HARDIN: My friends, they were pregnant. So, I wasn't too taken [with] their idea. I was not taking their advice cause I knew they were -- obviously, they weren't following it. But, you had Internet at a very -- I had a computer --

The birds and the bees … via the Internet

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean on the Internet, you'd learn how to have sex and avoid getting pregnant?

ALESHA HARDIN: Oh, I didn't learn how. I just learned what is birth control. I learned how not to get myself in a situation. But through family relationships, I understood how important it is to be in love with someone before you take that opportunity to, you know -- I'm Catholic. So my grandmother said, "Give the gift." So, you hold the gift until you're in love with somebody. You don't give your gift to anyone. That's how they talk about things like that in the south. And so, you don't say sex.

DOAN PHAN: My culture is not very open. It's like -

ALESHA HARDIN: Yeah, you don't talk about it. You indirectly talk about it like, you know, you better keep your gift or you know, Jesus is not gonna be too excited if you give your gift. You know, that's just how you -- you know, you come up talking about it.

And so, I'm just like, the gift? What are they talking about? I'm eight -- I don't know what my gift is. Are you getting it for Christmas? I mean, like, what's the gift? So that's why I really think that comprehensive sex education is so important.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Like many members of Generation Next, Alesha finds time in her hectic schedule to help others.

ALESHA HARDIN: I volunteer with the 19/17 clinic at UAB. I'm a sexual health educator. I grew up knowing what AIDS was. So my generation isn't as afraid of getting STD's and getting AIDS as my parent's generation or my brother's generation might be. My brother's like eight years older than I am. So it really shocked me that in high school l-- no actually in middle school we had pregnant people. We had people who got like Chlamydia and gonorrhea. And I've talked about it like they just picked up a Mentos or something. Yeah, I'm pregnant. Like you're 14 years old. And it -- and it just wasn't a big deal.

We have Magic Johnson. And we have people who have lived with it. Like our generation more looks towards celebrities almost like heroes. Like I look at celebrities as cautionary tales. Because I'm more realistic. I mean like our generation seriously thinks that no matter what comes to you there's a -- there's an -- an answer to your problem.

The biggest difference between generations is talking about it. Like I don't think my mother would ever sit around with her friends and talk about -- like sex, like you would watch on Sex and the City.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And if they're comfortable watching stories about sex on television, they have no problem talking about it on the radio.

JOHN FISKE: OK. What do you think most young people think about sex?

JEAN TWENGE: This generation is much more relaxed about sexual issues than the baby boomers who had this free love reputation which was pretty undeserved.

JOHN FISKE: What do you mean -- what do you mean relaxed?

JEAN TWENGE: In just -- well-- obviously, thinking that sex before marriage is no big deal. Lots and lots of data on this that this generation -- loses their virginity at earlier ages. And it's just much more approving of -- of premarital sex. And then there's the -- a more anecdotal evidence about -- about hooking up. That -- sex doesn't necessarily have to be part of a boyfriend girlfriend relationship anymore. It can be something that happens just between friends. Or -- you know, more what used to be called the one night stand. So hooking up is another big trend.

ALESHA HARDIN: Sex isn't something that you just do like going to the grocery store. It's supposed to be something that's shared between a man and a woman or a woman and woman or a man and a man. And it's supposed to be special. So, I want to not have sex. Or I want to make sure I'm in love or -- now, we have all these decisions we can make around it. Where in the few -- previous generations, you got married. And that's just what you did. Or you didn't get married. And you just didn't do it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mentioned sex: women, women, men, men. What about gay relationships?

ALESHA HARDIN: I had relatives who were closet-- homosexuals. I had friends in high school who were like -- I'm one of those people -- I'm not very judgmental.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And neither is the majority of Generation Next. According to our Pew research poll nearly 60 percent think homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society … while only half of those older than 25 share that view.

A different moral code
JANE BUCKINGHAM: It seems that they have a different moral code. And their moral code is no harm, no foul. If I don't hurt somebody else, it's okay, it's what makes them more accepting of things like inter-racial marriage or gay marriage because they sort of say -- well, you do what you want to do and I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do.

JUDY WOODRUFF: This generation's open attitude may be rooted in its own diversity. It is the most racially diverse in history. And with 88 percent going online, it's easier to make friends across cultural and geographic boundaries.

LINDSAY: I met this guy on my space -- one time, from California, and he found me and he messaged me because his family is from Birmingham.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Social networking websites like MySpace and Facebook, allow Gen Nexters to create personal profile pages, add photos, music, blogs and messaging … and build their own network of friends … people they already know or may never meet … who willingly share their lives on the Internet.

Just over half of those surveyed in our Pew poll have used networking sites, while one in ten have gone on a date with someone they met online.

JANE BUCKINGHAM: How many friends or contacts do you have on MySpace?

MALE: Probably only have, like, 200, maybe. Not too many.

JANE BUCKINGHAM: So 200, but that's not too many?

MALE: Well, probably only like 100, maybe, are, like, really good friends though. A lot of them are just like people you know. Not like you talk to them all the time.

FEMALE: You can kind of judge people by based on how many friends they have, you know. It sounds like kind of mean. But like, people who have 1000, you're like, you- they're weird. People who have, like 300, you're like, oh, OK.

JANE BUCKINGHAM: There are close friends, and then there are the 2,000 people they talk to on MySpace. There's that feeling of even if I'm not super popular in my high school, I have 1,000 people who want to talk to me. So I can't be that bad.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It's Saturday night, and Angie -- a new friend Doan met online -- joins the group as they hit some of Birmingham's hot spots. Never far from their cell phones, calling or text messaging others to join them, this is how much of Generation Next socializes. Their drinks are as diverse as they are.

'Black' is not a bad word

JUDY WOODRUFF: You are the most diverse generation ever in this country. It used to be, what we used to call minorities. Seventeen percent of your generation is Latino, 14 percent is African American, four percent is Asian, you add it all up pretty soon you're gonna be -- you know the minority will be a majority. My ques …

JOHN FISKE: A great way to describe that really quickly is that when our parents talk about black people or when they talk about Mexican people, they think it's a bad word. Like they go --

BRENT WILLIAMS: Get quiet.

JOHN FISKE: Hey did you guys see that black people go to school now. We're like, Mom, Dad it's not a mystery and it's not a bad word. You can say black. Like among our generation the word black and Mexican isn't touchy. But because they lived through those times that were so turbulent, they'll be like, well I heard that there is 17 million Mexicans in the country, (laughter) and it's like, come on, that's not a bad word, you can say Mexican.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I hope your mother's not listening.

JOHN FISKE: She probably is ... not.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So I was gonna ask you about interracial dating and marriage, but it sounds like --

MALE: All that stuff, who cares.

BRENT WILLIAMS: Let them do whatever they want.

KRIS WHITE: It was like … we grew up with things like Will & Grace and you know, having that in the comfort of our home and seeing all that --

JOHN FISKE: Family Matters.

KRIS WHITE: Family Matters, you know. So we've grown up with it and it's been a part of our lives. And it's not groundbreaking in the least bit to have --

JOHN FISKE: It's boring.

KRIS WHITE: Interracial couples.

JUDY WOODRUFF: From our interactive video kiosk, here's what other Gen Nexters had to say about equal rights in America.

MARGARET STRAIN: When Martin Luther King, Jr. was talking about that, he was talking about the race issue. But my generation has expanded this. I think that gay rights will be the next big equal rights issue. It already is.

HORATIO DAVIS: Katrina was, you know, the prime example of how America feels about black people. Not even just black people, poor people. I feel like when you have nothing to contribute to America, you mean absolutely nothing to America. They treated Katrina like a third world country.

JEFF HOLTZCLAW: It seems like too often equal rights is not going for equal rights but going for extra rights. Not getting into school because you're not black, because being in a minority gives you points on an application. That makes people hate people that are different because they are getting special rights. And unfortunately, one day there is going to be a race war in America, and it's going to be from stuff like this that pushes it. Now, it might not be fist against face or guns, but, I mean, sort of like the cold war.

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