Generation Me--Revised and Updated

by Jean M. Twenge

  As part of my doctoral dissertation: J. M. Twenge, “The Age of Anxiety? Birth Cohort Change in Anxiety and Neuroticism, 1952–1993,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 79 (2000): 1007–21.

  I analyzed data from 63,706 college students: J. M. Twenge, B. Gentile, C. N. DeWall, D. S. Ma, K. Lacefield, and D. R. Schurtz, “Birth Cohort Increases in Psychopathology among Young Americans, 1938–2007: A Cross-Temporal Meta-analysis of the MMPI,” Clinical Psychology Review 30 (2010): 145–54.

  Thirty percent of college freshmen reported: J. M. Twenge, “Time Period and Birth Cohort Differences in Depressive Symptoms in the US, 1982–2012,” Social Indicators Research (forthcoming).

  teen suicides are down 22%: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2012 and earlier volumes. For data on suicidal ideation declining, see the Youth Risk Behavior Survey.

  self-reports of anxiety and depression have leveled off: For a review, see J. M. Twenge, “Generational Differences in Mental Health: Are Children and Adolescents Suffering More, or Less?,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 81 (2011): 469–72.

  More high school students in 2012: Twenge, “Time Period and Birth Cohort Differences in Depressive Symptoms.”

  Drawing from the nationwide: C. M. Herbst, “ ‘Paradoxical’ Decline? Another Look at the Relative Reduction in Female Happiness,” Journal of Economic Psychology 32 (2011): 773–88.

  Someone commits suicide: www.suicidememorialwall.com.

  While the suicide rate for middle-aged people: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2004 and earlier years, http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/statab.html.

  In 2011, 16% of high school students: Centers for Disease Control, “Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System,” http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/yrbss.

  Years of bullying led: Kristin Hussey and John Leland, “After Boy’s Suicide, Questions about Missed Signs,” New York Times, August 30, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/31/nyregion/after-boys-suicide-questions-about-missed-signs.html?_r=0.

  After a dispute over a boy: Lizette Alvarez, “Girl’s Suicide Points to Rise in Apps Used by Cyberbullies,” New York Times, September 13, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/us/suicide-of-girl-after-bullying-raises-worries-on-web-sites.html?pagewanted=all.

  In a well-publicized 2009 report: B. Stevenson and J. Wolfers. “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 1 (2009), 190–225.

  Chris Herbst analyzed: Herbst, “ ‘Paradoxical’ Decline?”

  More than four times as many: Gregg Easterbrook, The Progress Paradox (New York: Random House, 2003), 180.

  One study found that in 1985: M. McPherson, L. Smith-Lovin, and M. E. Brashears, “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades,” American Sociological Review 71 (2006): 353–75.

  “There is a kind of famine”: Robert E. Lane, The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), 9.

  One 26-year-old participant called it: “Group Hug,” People, September 27, 2004.

  In Prozac Nation, her memoir: Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation: Young and Depressed in America (New York: Riverhead Books, 1994), 33.

  This has a clear link: P. R. Amato and B. Keith, “Parental Divorce and the Well-Being of Children: A Meta-analysis,” Psychological Bulletin 110 (1991): 26–46.

  the four characters on Sex and the City: Sex and the City, episode “Unoriginal Sin,” HBO, airdate July 28, 2002.

  Laurie, interviewed: Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Emerging Adulthood (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 110–11.

  Another couple described in the book: Ibid., 106.

  As Jake puts it, “I could be thirty-five”: Ibid., 105.

  Thousands more young men than women: Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2004 and earlier years, http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/statab.html.

  In 1950, only 9%: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues-jan-june12-goingsolo_03-27/. See also Eric Klinenberg, Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Going Alone (New York: Penguin, 2013).

  A recent in-depth study found that Chicago: Peter Gorner, “U. of C. Sex Study Sees Love, Loneliness,” Chicago Tribune, January 9, 2004.

  Author Chris Colin summed it up: Chris Colin, What Really Happened to the Class of ’93 (New York: Broadway Books, 2004), xiv.

  “A decade after high school”: Ibid., 60.

  Seventy-five percent of women aged 25 to 35: “The Next Generation: Today’s Professionals, Tomorrow’s Leaders,” (New York: Catalyst, 2001), http://www.catalystwomen.org.

  In The Costs of Living, Barry Schwartz describes: Barry Schwartz, Costs of Living (New York: Norton, 1994), 18.

  A mountain of scientific evidence links: D. R. Williams, D. T. Takeuchi, and R. K. Adair, “Marital Status and Psychiatric Disorders among Blacks and Whites,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 33 (1992): 140–57; Lee Robins and Darrel Reiger, Psychiatric Disorders in America (New York: Free Press, 1991); R. F. Baumeister and M. R. Leary, “The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation,” Psychological Bulletin 117 (1995): 497–529; and David Myers, The American Paradox (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), chap. 3.

  Harvard rejects between 25%: Marisa Meltzer, “The Swarm of the Super-Applicants,” New York, October 24, 2007, http://nymag.com/news/features/24398/; and http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/ivy-league-college-admission-rates-2013/.

  Two million high school students: http://research.collegeboard.org/programs/ap/data/archived/2012.

  Time magazine interviewed Marielle Woods: Sonja Steptoe, “Ready, Set, Relax!,” Time, October 27, 2003.

  Medical schools and law schools, especially: http://www.statisticbrain.com/medical-school-acceptance-rate-statistics/; http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/the-short-list-grad-school/articles/2013/04/30/10-most-selective-medical-schools; http://law-school.findthebest.com/; and http://poetsandquants.com/2011/04/22/the-50-most-selective-mba-programs-in-the-u-s/.

  “When I graduated from college”: Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner, Quarterlife Crisis (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 2001), 173.

  between 1984 and 2011, the wealth: Taylor, The Next America.

  “You need a college degree”: Lev Grossman, “Grow Up? Not So Fast,” Time, January 24, 2005.

  That’s exactly the change: E. Saez, “Striking It Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States” (updated with 2012 preliminary estimates), University of California at Berkeley, September 3, 2013.

  The median wage of American men: Joe McKendrick, “Men’s Incomes Have Declined 28% since 1968: Study,” Smart Planet, September 12, 2012, http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/business-brains/mens-incomes-have-declined-28-since-1968-study/.

  In 2010, 40% of all American families: Taylor, The Next America.

  $44,750 at the average private university: https://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064.

  Student loan debt has doubled: Adolfo Flores, “Student Loan Debt Nearly Doubles in Last Five Years, Report Says,” Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2013.

  In 1960, only 12%: Peter Coy, “Harvard Study Finds: The Rent Is Way Too High,” Bloomberg Businessweek, December 9, 2013.

  This is a relative bargain: Katy Steinmetz, “San Francisco’s 1 Percent: Tech Wealth’s Displacement Effect,” Time, February 1, 2014, http://www.npr.org/2013/12/03/247531636/as-rent-soars-longtime-san-francisco-tenants-fight-to-stay; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/09/new-york-city-rent_n_3568278.html; http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/what-does-it-really-cost-to-live-in-chicago-apartment-therapys-cost-of-living-report-chicago-2013-193139; and http://la.curbed.com/archives/2013/09/average_rent_in_los_angeles_county_has_jumped_to_1435.php.

  Former mayor Art Agnos says: http://www.npr.org/2013/12/03/247531636/as-rent-soars-longtime-san-francisco-tenants-fight-to-stay.

  In Nickel and Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich reports: Barba
ra Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001), 199.

  A stunning 1 out of 3: Ronald D. White, “Law School Grad Learns How to Pay Off a Heavy Debt,” Los Angeles Times, September 20, 2013.

  “I graduated from college with honors”: Time, February 14, 2005.

  “When my parents were my age”: Emily Alpert and Ricardo Lopez, “Leaving Nest Isn’t Easy for Millennials,” Los Angeles Times, August 2, 2013.

  The LA Times profiled Andrew Post: White, “Law School Grad Learns.”

  The cost varies from state to state: Child Care Aware, “Parents and the High Cost of Child Care,” 2012 report, https://www.naccrra.org/costofcare.

  In The Baby Book’s 2003 edition: William Sears and Martha Sears, The Baby Book (New York: Little, Brown, 2003), 413.

  A 2010 survey raised the bar: “26% of Teens Expected to Become Famous by Age 25,” Barna Group Youth Poll, May 10, 2010, https://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/16-teensnext-gen/366-teenagers-want-successful-careers-and-global-travel-expect-to-delay-marriage-a-parenting.

  Quarterlife Crisis concludes that twentysomethings: Robbins and Wilner, Quarterlife Crisis, 109.

  Tim Urban recently published an article: “Wait but Why, Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy,” Huffington Post, September 15, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html

  A Kaiser Family Foundation study found: V. Rideout, U. G. Foehr, and D. F. Roberts, “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8-to-18-Year Olds,” Kaiser Family Foundation study, January 2010, http://kff.org/other/event/generation-m2-media-in-the-lives-of/; and http://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/8010.pdf

  Writer Cathi Hanauer sums this up: Cathi Hanauer. ed., The Bitch in the House (New York: Harper Collins Perennial, 2002), xv.

  In Quarterlife Crisis, Joanna says: Robbins and Wilner, Quarterlife Crisis, 93.

  In her book on eating disorders: Joan Jacobs Brumberg, Fasting Girls (New York: New American Library, 1989), 267.

  As Midlife Crisis at 30 puts it: Lia Macko and Kerry Rubin, Midlife Crisis at 30: How the Stakes Have Changed for a New Generation—and What to Do about It (New York: Plume Penguin, 2004), 59.

  Sure enough, research shows: L. J. Shrum, J. E. Burroughs, and A. Rindfleisch, “Television’s Cultivation of Material Values,” Journal of Consumer Research, 2005; and L. J. Shrum, J. E. Burroughs, and A. Rindfleisch, “A Process Model of Consumer Cultivation: The Role of Television Is a Function of the Type of Judgment,” in The Psychology of Entertainment Media: Blurring the Lines between Entertainment and Persuasion, ed. L. J. Shrum (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2004), 177–91.

  Because fewer of us ride buses: James Fallows, “The Invisible Poor,” New York Times Magazine, March 19, 2000.

  People whose primary motivations: T. Kasser and R. Ryan, “A Dark Side of the American Dream,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 65 (1993): 410–22.

  Psychologist Ed Diener got many: E. Diener, J. Horowitz, and R. A. Emmons, “Happiness of the Very Wealthy,” Social Indicators 16 (1985): 263–74.

  People who win the lottery: P. Brickman, D. Coates, and R. Janoff-Bulman, “Lottery Winners and Accident Victims: Is Happiness Relative?,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36 (1978): 917–27.

  In a Gallup poll, 94%: David Popenoe and Barbara Defoe Whitehead, The State of Our Unions: The Social Health of Marriage in America, 2001 (New Brunswick, NJ: National Marriage Project, 2001).

  Norval Glenn, an expert: Lisa Bereson, “The State of the Union: A Special Report,” Ladies’ Home Journal, March 2003.

  The authors of Midlife Crisis at 30 call: Macko and Rubin, Midlife Crisis at 30, 89–90.

  “It’s as if some idiot”: M. E. P. Seligman, “Boomer Blues,” Psychology Today, October 1988, 50–53.

  people who watch many hours: D. Romer, K. H. Jamieson, and S. Aday, “Television News and the Cultivation of Fear of Crime,” Journal of Communication 53 (2003): 88–104.

  “His biggest fear, he told me”: “Utah Scout Feeling ‘Good’ after Ordeal,” cnn.com, June 23, 2005.

  5. Yeah, Right: The Belief That There’s No Point in Trying

  Liqing Zhang, Charles Im, and I found 97 studies: J. M. Twenge, L. Zhang, and C. Im, “It’s Beyond My Control: A Cross-Temporal Meta-analysis of Increasing Externality in Locus of Control, 1960–2002,” Personality and Social Psychology Review 8 (2004): 308–19.

  cynical statements such as: S. J. Pharr, R. D. Putnam, and R. J. Dalton, “A Quarter-Century of Declining Confidence,” Journal of Democracy 11 (2000): 5–25.

  More recently, a Pew survey of adults: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Section 3: Values about Economic Inequality and Individual Opportunity,” June 4, 2012, http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/section-3-values-about-economic-inequality-and-individual-opportunity/.

  As it turned out, kids were: Twenge, Zhang, and Im, “It’s Beyond My Control.”

  Out of 30 items measuring: J. M. Twenge, W. K. Campbell, and E. C. Freeman, “Generational Differences in Young Adults’ Life Goals, Concern for Others, and Civic Orientation, 1966–2009,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102 (2012): 1045–62.

  In later analyses, we found: Park, Twenge, and Greenfield, “The Great Recession.”

  Another study comparing generations: R. Rasch and B. Kowske, “Will Millennials Save the World through Work? International Generational Differences in the Relative Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility and Business Ethics to Turnover Intentions,” in Managing the New Workforce: International Perspectives on the Millennial Generation, ed. S. T. Lyons, E. S. Ng, and L. Schweitzer (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2012).

  GenMe’ers were significantly less: Twenge, Campbell, and Freeman, “Generational Differences.”

  In 1992, 90% of American adults: Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years,” 2012, http://www.people-press.org/2012/06/04/partisan-polarization-surges-in-bush-obama-years/.

  Between 2000 and 2013, twice: http://www.gallup.com/poll/1615/environment.aspx.

  In the high school survey, confidence: J. M. Twenge, W. K. Campbell, and N. T. Carter, “Declines in Trust in Others and Confidence in Institutions among American Adults and Late Adolescents, 1972–2012” (unpublished manuscript, 2014).

  Less than 20% of young people: David T. Z. Mindich, Tuned Out: Why Americans Under 40 Don’t Follow the News (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  Only 32% of people aged 18 to 24: Ibid.

  found that 60% of American: Ibid.

  In another poll, high school seniors: CBS News, The Class of 2000 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2001), ebook, 126.

  As author Neil Postman notes: Neil Postman, The Disappearance of Childhood (New York: Vintage, 1994), 95.

  “when they encounter teachers”: Maureen Stout, The Feel-Good Curriculum (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000), 263.

  “Kids see people like Bill Gates”: Peter Sacks, Generation X Goes to College (Chicago: Open Court Press, 1996), 169.

  Susan Peterson, who teaches: Amazon.com, “You Think Gen X Is Bad? Watch Out for Gen Y,” review of Generation X Goes to College, by Sacks, posted April 11, 2003.

  “the impulse to flee”: Charles Sykes, A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character.( New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 15.

  The Myth of Laziness author Mel Levine: Mel Levine, The Myth of Laziness (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003).

  As Sykes puts it: Sykes, Nation of Victims, 144.

  In 1940, about 20,000 civil lawsuits: Theodore Caplow, Louis Hicks, and Ben J. Wattenberg, The First Measured Century (Washington, DC: AEI Press, 2001), 198.

  by 2012, this had increased more than tenfold: http://www.uscourts.gov/Statistics/JudicialBusiness/2012.aspx.

  One young man sued: “Former Law Student Stages Hunger Strike,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 23, 1998.

&nb
sp; Chris Colin was heartened: Colin, What Really Happened, 258.

  “Kids today have extremely”: Sacks, Generation X Goes to College, 59.

  Another student asked if: Ibid., 16.

  Sacks reports with irony: Ibid., 20.

  “Students who receive a C, D, or F”: Daniel Kazez, “A Is for Anybody,” Newsweek, August 8, 1994, 10.

  In his book I’m the Teacher: Patrick Allitt, I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), 211.

  After Sacks pointed out: Sacks, Generation X Goes to College, 122.

  In her book Not Much Just Chillin’: Linda Perlstein, Not Much Just Chillin’: The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers (New York: Ballantine, 2003), 183.

  Time magazine ran a cover story: Nancy Gibbs, “What Teachers Hate About Parents,” Time, February 21, 2005.

  Scott McLeod, the headmaster: Michael Lewis, “Coach Fitz’s Management Theory,” New York Times Magazine, March 28, 2004.

  People who believe that outside forces: V. A. Benassi, P. D. Sweeney, and C. L. Dufour, “Is There a Relation between Locus of Control Orientation and Depression?,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 97 (1988): 357–67; S. E. Hahn, “The Effects of Locus of Control on Daily Exposure, Coping and Reactivity to Work Interpersonal Stressors: A Diary Study,” Personality and Individual Differences 29 (2000): 729–48; J. Mirowsky and C. E. Ross, “Control or Defense? Depression and the Sense of Control over Good and Bad Outcomes,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 31 (1990): 71–86; and M. P. Naditch, M. Gargan, and L. Michael, “Denial, Anxiety, Locus of Control, and the Discrepancy between Aspirations and Achievements as Components of Depression,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 84 (1975): 1–9.

  anxious: D. G. Kilpatrick, W. R. Dubin, and D. B. Marcotte, “Personality, Stress of the Medication Education Process, and Changes in Affective Mood State,” Psychological Reports 34 (1974): 1215–23; and G. Morelli, H. Krotinger, and S. Moore, “Neuroticism and Levenson’s Locus of Control Scale,” Psychological Reports 44 (1979): 153–54.

  cope poorly with stress: N. Krause and S. Stryker, “Stress and Well-Being: The Buffering Role of Locus of Control Beliefs,” Social Science and Medicine, 18 (1984): 783–90; and I. N. Sandler and B. Lakey, “Locus of Control as a Stress Moderator: The Role of Control Perception and Social Support,” American Journal of Community Psychology 10 (1982): 65–80.