I draw primarily from four databases. One, called Monitoring the Future (MtF), has asked high school seniors (12th graders) more than a thousand questions every year since 1976 and queried 8th and 10th graders since 1991. The Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS, administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has surveyed high school students since 1991. The American Freshman (AF) Survey, administered by the Higher Education Research Institute, has questioned students entering four-year colleges and universities since 1966. Finally, the General Social Survey (GSS) has examined adults 18 and over since 1972. (For more details on these surveys and their methods, see Appendix A.) These surveys can show us how Boomers were grooving when they were in high school in the 1970s, how GenX’ers rocked it in the 1980s and 1990s, how Millennials bopped through the 2000s, and how iGen is making its own waves in the 2010s.
By comparing one generation to another at the same age, we can observe the views of young people about themselves, rather than relying on older people’s reflections on a time gone by. We can see differences that are due to cultural changes and not to age. These differences can’t be dismissed by saying that “young people have always been this way.” In fact, these surveys show that young people are now quite different from young people in previous decades. The relative youth of these samples is also exciting—it allows us a peek at iGen’ers as they are forming their identities, starting to articulate their opinions, and finding their path toward adulthood.
These data sources have three other distinct advantages. First, they are large in sample size and scope, collecting data on thousands of people every year who have answered hundreds of questions anonymously. All told, they have surveyed 11 million people. Second, the survey administrators were careful to ensure that the people answering the questions were representative of the US population in terms of gender, race, location, and socioeconomic status. That means that the conclusions can be generalized to American young people as a whole (or, in the case of college students, to college students as a whole). Third, all of these data sets are publicly available online— they are not hiding behind paywalls or fees, so the data are transparent and open. These surveys are national treasures of Big Data, providing a glimpse of the lives and beliefs of Americans in decades gone by as well as an up-to-date look at young people in recent years. With this solid mass of generational data now emerging, we no longer need to rely on shaky one-time studies to understand iGen.
Because the survey samples are nationally representative, they represent American young people as a whole, not just an isolated group. Of course, the demographics of American youth have changed over time; for example, more are Hispanic than in previous decades. It’s fair to ask whether the generational shifts are solely due to these demographic shifts—that’s a question of cause rather than accuracy, but it’s still worth asking. For that reason and others, I’ve also examined whether the trends appear across different groups (for example, black, white, and Hispanic; girls and boys; in the Northeast, Midwest, South, and West; in urban, rural, and suburban areas; lower socioeconomic status and higher socioeconomic status—such as whether one’s parents attended college or not). With only a few exceptions, the generational trends appear across all of these demographic groups. These sweeping changes appear among poor teens and rich ones, those of every ethnic background, and in cities, suburbs, and small towns. If you’re curious about what the trends look like within these groups, I’ve put figures with some of these breakdowns in the appendices.
For a preview of some generational differences, take the quiz on the next page to find out how much your experiences overlap with those of iGen. Regardless of when you were born, how iGen are you?
Take this 15-item quiz to find out how “iGen” you are. Answer each question with “yes” or “no.”
______ 1. In the past 24 hours, did you spend at least an hour total texting on a cell phone?
______ 2. Do you have a Snapchat account?
______ 3. Do you consider yourself a religious person?
______ 4. Did you get your driver’s license by the time you turned 17?
______ 5. Do you think same-sex marriage should be legal?
______ 6. Did you ever drink alcohol (more than a few sips) by the time you turned 16?
______ 7. Did you fight with your parents a lot when you were a teen?
______ 8. Were more than one-third of the other students at your high school a different race than you?
______ 9. When you were in high school, did you spend nearly every weekend night out with your friends?
_____ 10. Did you have a job during the school year when you were in high school?
_____ 11. Do you agree that safe spaces and trigger warnings are good ideas and that efforts should be made to reduce microaggressions?
_____ 12. Are you a political independent?
_____ 13. Do you support the legalization of marijuana?
_____ 14. Is having sex without much emotion involved desirable?
_____ 15. When you were in high school, did you feel left out and lonely fairly often?
SCORING: Give yourself 1 point for answering “yes” to questions 1, 2, 5, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15. Give yourself 1 point for answering “no” to questions 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10. The higher your score, the more iGen you are in your behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs.
The Demographics—and the World
Using the birth years 1995 to 2012, iGen includes 74 million Americans, about 24% of the population. That means one in four Americans is a member of iGen—all the more reason to understand them. iGen is the most ethnically diverse generation in American history: one in four is Hispanic, and nearly 5% are multiracial. Non-Hispanic whites are a bare majority, at 53%. The birth years at the end of iGen are the first to have a nonwhite majority: beginning with the iGen’ers born in late 2009, less than 50% are non-Hispanic whites. That means no one group is in the majority, practically the definition of diversity. The generation after iGen—those born in 2013 and later—will be the first majority nonwhite generation.
The data here are from US samples, so the conclusions can’t be directly generalized to other countries. However, many of the generational shifts that appear here are emerging in other cultures as well. Researchers around the world are documenting many of the same trends, with new studies constantly appearing. The Internet and smartphone boom hit other industrialized countries at about the same time as these technologies took hold in the United States, and the consequences are likely to be similar.
The Context
To flesh out my number crunching with a sense of real people, I have taken a deeper look at iGen in a number of ways. First, I interviewed twenty-three iGen’ers in person or on the phone for up to two hours, delving into their thoughts on pop culture, teen social life, current events, campus controversies, and their all-important smartphones. These young people ranged in age from 12 to 20; they were black, white, Asian American, Latino/a, and Middle Eastern American; from Virginia, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, Minnesota, Georgia, and California; and attending middle school, high school, community college, or four-year college, the vast majority at institutions that would not be considered particularly elite. I also posed written interview questions online on sites such as Amazon’s MTurk Requester, conducted a survey of 250 introductory psychology students at San Diego State University, where I teach, and discussed various issues as they came up in classes with my undergraduate students. I also read a wide array of opinion pieces from college newspapers around the country. These sources are not nationally representative, so they are not a replacement for the survey data. These iGen’ers’ individual experiences are just that and might not be representative of their generation. The survey data are always the gold standard; the interviews and essays illustrate that data and do not in any way replace it. They are, however, a path to humanizing the young people behind the data. As iGen’ers age and start to shape our world, they deserve to be heard in addition to
being understood empirically.
When I wrote Generation Me, my book about the Millennials, I was just a little older than the cohort I was writing about and had experienced many of the same cultural phenomena. Hard data from surveys formed the core of that book, just as they do here, but as a GenX’er my own life mirrored much of what I wrote about. That’s not as true in this book, where I’m twenty-five to thirty years older than iGen teens. (To my chagrin, one of the college students I interviewed told me I reminded him of his mother. As it turned out, I actually am the same age as his parents.) My role here is much more observer than participant. However, I now have another perspective: my three daughters were born in 2006, 2009, and 2012, in the later years of iGen. I have thus seen firsthand some of the quintessential iGen experiences such as a toddler, barely old enough to walk, confidently swiping her way through an iPad. I’ve also experienced having a 6-year-old ask for a cell phone and hearing a 9-year-old describe the latest app to sweep the 4th grade. Maybe if I name their generation, my kids will listen to me when I tell them to put on their shoes.
In this book, the voices of iGen’ers—whether the statistics from the large surveys or their own words in interviews—speak for themselves. The book also features more than a hundred graphs of the survey data spanning the generations so you can see the data for yourself—not just the data for iGen but the data for Millennials, GenX’ers, and Boomers as well. The graphs summarize a large amount of data in a small amount of space (a graph is worth a thousand words). You’ll see firsthand how iGen stands out, with the abrupt drop-offs and sheer rock faces around 2011 for many traits and behaviors and more gradual changes in others.
The Caveats
As a generations researcher, I’m often asked questions such as “Why are you blaming the kids? Isn’t it the parents’ fault?” (Or “the Boomers’ fault?” or “GenX’ers fault?”) This question makes two false assumptions: first, it assumes that all generational changes are negative; second, it implies that a single cause (such as parenting) can be identified for each change. Neither is true. Some generational changes are positive, some are negative, and many are both. There’s a natural human tendency to classify things as all good or all bad, but with cultural changes, it’s better to see the gray areas and the trade-offs. Given that many generational differences are positive or at least neutral, using words such as fault and blame doesn’t really make sense. It’s also counterproductive, leaving us squabbling about whom to blame rather than understanding the trends, both good and bad. Cultural change also has many causes, not just one—it’s not just parents, but technology, media, business, and education working together to create an entire culture that is radically different from the one our parents and grandparents experienced. It’s nobody’s fault or everybody’s fault. Cultures change, and generations change with them; that’s the important point. It’s not a contest to see which generation is worse (or better); the culture has changed, and we’re all in this together.
Once we know that a generational change has occurred, the natural next question is “Why?” This can be a difficult question to answer. The gold standard in science for showing that one thing causes another is an experiment, in which people are randomly assigned to have different experiences. For generational differences, that would mean randomly assigning people to grow up at different times—a true mission impossible. The next best way to identify possible causes is a two-step process. First, the two things must be correlated with each other. For example, we can see whether teens who spend more time on social media are more depressed. Second, the two things must change at the same time and in the correct direction. If social media use and depression both increase during the same years, one might cause the other. If they don’t (say, one goes up while the other stays about the same), one is likely not causing the other. This approach can, at the very least, rule out possible causes. It can’t fully rule causes in, but it can provide evidence that points toward something as the culprit.
Another caveat: the numbers here are averages. For example, the average iGen teen spends more time online than the average Millennial did in 2005. Of course, some iGen teens spend little time online, and some Millennials spent a lot of time—there is considerable overlap between the two groups. Just because there is an average difference doesn’t mean that everyone in the generation is exactly the same. So why not treat everyone as an individual? If you’re going to analyze data, that’s just not possible. Statistics rely on averages, so you can’t compare groups of people without them. That’s why virtually every scientific study of people relies on averages. This isn’t stereotyping; it’s comparing groups using a scientific method. Stereotyping occurs when someone assumes that any individual person must be representative of his or her group. It’s not a valid criticism of generational studies to say that they describe “everyone” in a generation in one way or to say that they “overgeneralize.” Any overgeneralizing that occurs is due to a mistaken interpretation by individual people, not to the data themselves.
What if the cultural changes are affecting everyone and not just iGen? In many cases, they are. This is known as a time-period difference, or a cultural change that has an equal effect on people of all ages. Pure time-period effects are fairly rare, because age usually affects how people experience events. Cultural change often affects the young first, and then spreads to older people. Smartphones and social media are a perfect example of that. However, much of this book is about how iGen’ers’ adolescence is markedly different from their predecessors’, which is naturally a generational difference as the teen years of Boomers, GenX’ers, and Millennials are already past.
The Way Forward
Where iGen goes, the country goes. Parents of adolescents wonder how their teens’ constant smartphone use will affect their brains, their emotions, and their relationships. The majority of college students are already iGen, bringing their values, viewpoints, and ever-present smartphones to campuses around the country. Young recruits to businesses will soon be dominated by iGen’ers, not Millennials, which may catch some companies unprepared for iGen’ers’ different perspective. iGen’ers’ product preferences are already shaping the marketplace with their teen and young adult influences, and they will soon dominate the lucrative 18-to-29-year-old market. iGen’ers’ political preferences will shape elections far into the future, and their attitudes will dictate policy and laws. Their marriage rates and birthrates will affect the demographic balance of the country, determining whether there will be enough young workers to support Millennials and GenX’ers in their retirement. iGen is at the forefront of the enormous changes under way in the United States today, driven by the Internet, individualism, income inequality, and other forces of cultural change. Understanding iGen means understanding the future—for all of us.
So what’s really different about iGen?
Chapter 1
* * *
In No Hurry: Growing Up Slowly
It’s a bright fall afternoon when I arrive at a high school just outside San Diego and make my way to the psychology classroom. The teacher reminds the students that they have an exam coming up on Monday and tells them it’s a “work day” for them to organize their notes and study. We move two desks into the breezeway outside the classroom, and the teacher rifles through the permission slips. “Azar,” he says, and a girl with long dark hair fist-pumps the air and says, “Yes!”
Azar exudes unbridled enthusiasm for just about everything, talking at the rapid, singsong pace favored by many southern California teens. “Have you seen Spy? It’s sooo good,” she gushes. When I ask her if she has a favorite song on the radio right now, she says, “Yes. ‘Wildest Dreams’ by Taylor Swift, ‘Blank Space’ by Taylor Swift, and ‘Bad Blood’ by Taylor Swift.” “So you like Taylor Swift?” I tease. “Well, I wouldn’t say that—I’ve only memorized all of her songs,” she replies. When I ask her what she likes to read, she says, “Harry Potter is my life—I love him.” She tells me she doesn’t have her driver�
�s license yet, so her mom drops her off at school.
With her fixation on Taylor Swift, her love of Harry Potter, and the rides she’s getting from her mom, you might guess that Azar is 14. But she’s not—she’s 17.
Azar is growing up slowly, taking longer to embrace the responsibilities and pleasures of adulthood. It’s tempting to think she’s the exception: with porn on the Internet, sexy Halloween costumes for young girls, 7th-grade boys requesting nude pictures of their classmates, and other adults-too-soon trends gaining attention, many people believe that children and teens are instead growing up more quickly than in the past. “Childhood is gone. They have access to this world of adults they feel they have to participate in,” lamented a Brooklyn middle school principal recently. Many believe that teens are barreling toward adulthood faster than ever. But are they?
(Not) Going Out and (Not) Getting It On
When I knock on the door of the neat suburban house on a Friday evening, 14-year-old Priya answers. She’s a pretty Indian American with long hair and braces who is a few months into her freshman year of high school in a suburban neighborhood at the far northern edge of the city limits of San Diego. Her mother offers me a glass of ice water as we sit at their dining room table next to Priya’s study books and her pink calculator; Priya is already carrying a heavy academic load of honors classes. I ask her what she does for fun with her friends. “Sometimes we make plans and go see a movie or something . . . or go out to dinner sometimes,” she says. But those are not parent-free outings. “Usually, like, one parent comes along, or two, depending on how many want to go,” she says. “It’s kind of fun—with parents and kids.” They find a movie everyone will like, she says, and the parents and children go together—just as they did when the kids were in elementary school.
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