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Generation Y, representing the country’s emerging new workforce and those still in college, is a challenging group for marketers to reach. That point was driven home emphatically by a panel of young adults moderated by Guy Kawasaki. You can watch the engrossing discussion here. It is an hour long and worthy of every second of that time if you are trying to communicate to this group now or in the near future. By the way, these people are the future, and like it or not, this group—with an assist from technology—has developed a keen advertising avoidance system.

A panel of six obviously doesn’t represent a statisically valid sample, but you can use it as you would a focus group to gain insights into what and how this generation thinks. Many of the things the panelists discussed are backed up by a considerable amount of statistically-valid research.

Here are some things from the panel discussion Guy referenced on his blog:

• They send as many as 4,000 text messages per month from their phones [most adults who engage in one-on-one sequential and complete conversations won’t comprehend this].
• They watch one to two hours of TV per week. And they use Tivo or [a DVR] to fast-forward through commercials.
• They buy approximately forty songs a month on iTunes.
• Helio is the hot phone (though none of them had one).

Other things mentioned by the Gen Y panelists:

• They use email daily, but it is usually only to communicate with “older people” or for more formal communication.
• They all had iPods and are unlikely to change because they like iPods and are used to the interface.
• They don’t print photos: everything is digital and they keep it in iPhoto or something similar.
• They use MySpace and FaceBook a great deal…a great deal! Many have hundreds of “friends.”
• They use their cell phones a lot—and seldom use a landline.
• Computers are used throughout their waking hours to buy things online, visit MySpace/Facebook, get news, do homework, and use IM/email.
• They rely on friends for product recommendations and try to avoid advertising whenever possible (TiVo, banner blockers, iPods, etc.).
• All of them read some national magazines: Vogue, Wired, Us, Newsweek.
• Most of them don’t have a clue about RSS or wikis [they don’t have time to save time].