• Andre the Giant, River Phoenix, Frank Zappa, Arthur Ashe and the Commodore 64 have always been dead.

• There has always been an Internet ramp onto the information highway.

• Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be their parents.

• They “swipe” cards, not merchandise.

• Their school’s “blackboards” have always been getting smarter.

• American tax forms have always been available in Spanish.

• Amazon has never been just a river in South America.

• Refer to LBJ, and they might assume you’re talking about LeBron James.

• Video games have always had ratings.

• Music has always been available via free downloads.

• Grown-ups have always been arguing about health care policy.

• Sears has never sold anything out of a Big Book that could also serve as a doorstop.

• Electric cars have always been humming in relative silence on the road.

• No state has ever failed to observe Martin Luther King Day.

• While they’ve been playing outside, their parents have always worried about nasty new bugs borne by birds and mosquitoes.

• Public schools have always made space available for advertising.

• Their parents have always been able to create a will and other legal documents online.

• They’ve always wanted to be like Shaq or Kobe: Michael Who?

• They’ve often broken up with their significant others via texting, Facebook, or MySpace.

• They won’t go near a retailer that lacks a website.

• Andy Warhol is a museum in Pittsburgh.

• Refugees and prisoners have always been housed by the U.S. government at Guantanamo.

• McDonalds coffee has always been just a little too hot to handle.

Beloit recently applied their popular format to 10 generations of Americans over 150 years in their new book, The Mindset Lists of American History: From Typewriters to Text Messages, What Ten Generations of Americans Think Is Normal (Wiley and Sons.).