IGen
Dr. Jean Twenge offers a portrait of a new generation that is growing up more slowly and more anxious -- but also more tolerant and more safe -- than any generation in history. They stay away from grown-up temptations like alcohol and sex, but they also avoid grown-up responsibilities, like learning to drive, moving out of the house, and gaining financial independence. They're open-minded, forward-thinking, and prudent in ways that previous generations of young people were not. The traits and trends of iGen can seem puzzling or even counterintuitive, but if we want to interact with them successfully -- to parent them, to teach them, to work with them, to market to them -- we need to understand who they are and why they behave in the ways that they do. With generational divides that are deeper and wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today's rising generation of teens and young adults who are just starting to enter the workforce. As social media and texting replace other recreational activities and ways of communicating, iGen'ers spend less time with their friends and loved ones in person -- which perhaps explains why they are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness. But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct. Through her research, interviews, and analysis of data drawn from more than 11 million respondents over multiple decades, Dr.
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What Hacker News says
- Twenge's book iGen is in fact excellent: https://jakeseliger.com/2017/08/28/igen-jean-m-twenge-the-ki... and complements The Coddling of the American Mind.
- If you want a book that uses national polls conducted over the past 40+ years, plus a little bit of anecdotal evidence to make the data tangible, I recommend iGen by Jean M. Twenge[0].
There's a noticeable trend that the kids of this upcoming generation are ill-prepared for college and expect the authorities to protect them. In highschool, they're less likely to go out without their parents or work a part-time job (And on a positive note, less likely to drink or have premarital sex).
[0] https://www.amazon.com/iGen-Super-Connected-Rebellious-Happy...
- "the generation I call “iGen” that’s also called Gen Z"
I am judging this author very harshly for making up their own label for something everybody else already has a name for.
- First it was Generation Me in 2006 [1], then The Narcissism Epidemic in 2010 [2], and now iGen in 2017 [3]. All three books follow exactly the same pattern: stick a vapid and insulting nickname onto the latest generation, call that generation lonely and narcissistic, and blame it all on the latest technological innovations while completely ignoring the broader economic and social context. Each book directly contradicts the previous one and directly contracts her own previous studies [4], while simply reusing the same arguments and switching the target from generation to generation.
[1]: https://www.amazon.com/Generation-Americans-Confident-Assert...
[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Narcissism-Epidemic-Living-Age-Entitl...
[3]: https://www.amazon.com/iGen-Super-Connected-Rebellious-Happy...
[4] https://www.livescience.com/52771-why-teens-are-happy-adults... "Very quickly, Twenge said, a pattern emerged: The eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders of today are happier than the eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders of previous decades."
