The internet has given birth to a new socio-economic group dubbed 'Generation C', which stands for content, connectivity, creativity, collaboration and communication, it was claimed today.

This generation of users will be more able to communicate with a wider cross section of people, and find common ground across previously divisive differences as a result of the internet's proliferation

The report was published by the Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC), and conducted on behalf of Rackspace Managed Hosting.

Tomorrow's Generation C will be nicer than today's Generation X, which author Douglas Coupland, who originally coined the phrase, describes as " underemployed, overeducated, intensely private and unpredictable".

Peter Marsh, director of SIRC, said: "Generation C will be middle aged by 2020. This generation has grown up under the web ideologies of open access, co-operation, exchange and sharing of information, as will all further generations. This will have profound implications for our society.

"Although the tendency is to focus on the internet's negative implications - unsociable generations only able to connect via the web, predators stalking social networking sites, piracy, spam, phishing and identity theft - we suggest that, although these will remain as problems, they will not predominate and a more positive future lies ahead."