Gen Z & America’s Future
SD METRO Associate Editor Douglas Page spoke recently with nationally known San Diego State University Psychology Professor Jean Twenge about her latest book, Generations, which discusses the differences between the six generations in the United States and what it means for the country’s future. The following transcript was edited for brevity and clarity. A video of the interview can also be watched on sandiegometro.com.
SD METRO: What was the impetus for the book?
Dr. Twenge: My previous book, called iGen, was about Gen Z (born 1995 – 2012) and how technology was shaping them. But when I gave talks on it, people would sometimes say, “Well, what about everybody else? Hasn’t technology affected everyone else?” And it got me thinking, “Well, true.” Plus, technology isn’t just smartphones and social media. It’s also the driver of so much cultural change. That’s why it’s different to live now versus 200 years ago, or 100 years ago, or 50 years ago, or even 20 years ago. Technology shapes our lives.
SD METRO: When you’re talking technology, you’re not just talking about the phone and the laptop. You’re talking about television, radio, perhaps the microwave oven, indoor plumbing — everything.
Dr. Twenge: Washing machines, better medical care. These are all things that have had a big impact on how we live our lives.
SD METRO: Is this the first time that we’ve seen six generations alive simultaneously?
Dr. Twenge: It might be because technological change has sped up, and generations seem to be getting shorter. Now, there’s different definitions of the word generation. It’s originally used to mean a reproductive generation or your children, your grandchildren, your parents, your grandparents. But social generations, like, say, Baby Boomers, have gotten shorter. The cutoffs are somewhat arbitrary. Millennials, for example, didn’t last as long, as I and many other people thought they would because the smartphone became popular. There’s a fundamental difference if you went to high school in the time when people had smartphones versus when they didn’t. That created the generational break between Millennials and Gen Z, much sooner than people thought it was going to. Originally people thought, “Oh, millennials, maybe they’ll be like 1980 to 2000.” But I put the cutoff in 1995 because that’s the turning point for when the majority of Americans had a smartphone in terms of when someone might be in high school.
SD METRO: I was struck by one of your early sentences when you wrote that, “We’re all part of a generation and yet many of us don’t feel like we’re a member of a generation that we’re a part of.” Have you seen this in every generation that you’ve studied?
Dr. Twenge: Absolutely. It applies across many different types of groups. People think about their background or where they grew up or their ethnic background, or their gender or religion. They may not necessarily feel like a typical member of that group. That’s even more true for generations than it is for say, religion or political party because you don’t choose which generation you are born in. So, someone might be a Gen Xer or but not completely feel like a Gen Xer. When we’re talking about these group differences, we’re talking about differences on average. So of course, there’s plenty of variation within the generation, just like there’s plenty of variation among Californians. There’s plenty of variation among any big group of people.
SD METRO: In your book, you list about 17 pages of sources. How long did you spend doing the research for this book?
Dr. Twenge: Well, I feel like I have been preparing my whole life to write this book because the direct time was several years of digging through the databases and so on. I’ve been doing this work since grad school in the 90s, and I feel like all of it built up to writing this book.
SD METRO: You mentioned a study about Gen Z, one of the youngest generations out, which you say feels incredibly isolated. Can you explain this?
Dr. Twenge: Gen Z is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. I defined them as being born between 1995 and about 2012. And as they were growing older, this was when more people got a smartphone. Social media became the norm, almost mandatory for high school students. And at that same time, teens started spending a lot less time with each other face to face. And the same became true for young adults. A lot more Gen Z teens report feeling lonely, compared to Millennials, Gen X and Boomers at the same age. They spend a lot less time going out, going shopping, getting together with friends. Anything that has to do with being with peers face-to-face in leisure time, they do it a lot less often. In one survey of entering college students, the amount of time that students spent going to parties and socializing was cut by an hour a day.
SD METRO: An hour a day. Compared to?
Dr. Twenge: Compared to Gen X in the 80s.
SD METRO: Compared to Gen X in the 80s. And would that be even larger compared to the Baby Boomer generation?
Dr. Twenge: It would be if we had the data going back that far, but we don’t.
SD METRO: I have two Gen Z sons, and I’ve noticed exactly with them what you’re talking about. Is there a fear with this generation of interacting with someone face-to-face? Or is there something else that’s driving it?
Dr. Twenge: Communication moved online, and to social media, and that’s where teen social interaction happens now. And it feels like it’s less necessary to get together face-to-face. But the problem, of course, is that getting together online is not the same as getting together face-to-face. It’s not the same for feeling an emotional connection with someone, and it’s not the same for mental health. Teens who spend a lot of time with each other face-to-face tend to be happier, less depressed, and less lonely. For those who spend a lot of time online, it’s the opposite – more likely to be depressed, unhappy, and lonely.
SD METRO: It doesn’t bring about a compelling case to hang on Facebook or anywhere else does it?
Dr. Twenge: Well, yes. However, the algorithms on all of those sites are designed to keep us on for as long as possible, because that’s how the companies make the most money.
SD METRO: Sure. Let’s do this — sum up each generation in just a few words. When you think about the Silent Generation, how would you describe them in a few words?
Dr. Twenge: Born between 1925 and 1945, their name is really a misnomer because they were at the forefront of a lot of the changes, like civil rights and the feminist movements. Two famous members of that generation include the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
SD METRO: Baby Boomers.
Dr. Twenge: Born 1946 to 1964, their name comes from the huge increase in the birth rate during those years. They’re like the 800 lbs.-gorilla in the room because their voting power was considerable. They follow a very interesting trajectory, even more exaggerated than what usually happens with age. They started as a very liberal generation. They are ending as a conservative ones.
SD METRO: They became their parents?
Dr. Twenge: Not quite, because a lot of the changes that they fought for took place and happened, like desegregation and women in the workforce, for example. They’re not like their greatest generation parents. But there’s this phenomenon that happens sometimes where people might fight for change when they’re younger and then, when they get older, they’re like, “Okay, that’s good. Stop the world. I want to get off. We’ve changed enough.”
SD METRO: But the world continues to change.
Dr. Twenge: Exactly.
SD METRO: Gen X?
Dr. Twenge: Born 1965 to 1979. I’m a Gen Xer. In the whole generational consideration, we are very ignored. Everybody always forgets about Gen X. We are the middle child of generations in terms of where we fit among the five adult generations, and also just with being ignored. Gen X really straddles the two worlds, the last to grow up in an analog world and the first to discover the digital world. That’s one of the things that characterizes them the most. The other from that background is toughness. A lot of Gen Xers pride themselves on being tough, especially in comparison to younger generations.
SD METRO: And what makes them tough compared to younger generations? How do they see that?
Dr. Twenge: I think that’s based on that analog childhood and exploring the early years of the digital world. Plus, just being together face-to-face with people and being in what some people call the “meet world.” And fighting in that arena is just a different experience from, say, having an argument online.
SD METRO: Millennials?
Dr. Twenge: Born between 1980 to 1994, one of their cardinal influences is individualism. So that’s affected all generations, but it reached its peak with Millennials in terms of being very optimistic and having positive self-views. The general trope about Millennials being economically downtrodden turns out not to be the case. Median incomes are actually at all-time highs. Their homeownership rates are only a couple percentage points below where boomers and Gen Xers were at the same age. The idea that they need three jobs or they’re never going to own a house turns out not to be true when you look at data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
SD METRO: Gen Z?
Dr. Twenge: Born between 1995 to 2012, this is the first generation to spend their adolescence in the age of the smartphone. And that’s had ripple effects across so many areas of their lives. It’s why they are not spending as much time with each other face-to-face. And it’s also why, I argue, their rates of depression, self-harm and suicide are at all-time highs.
SD METRO: The last generation you mentioned in your book, the Polars, which is the youngest and, at most, about 10 years old. How do you describe them?
Dr. Twenge: The term Polars comes from melting polar ice caps and political polarization. So, two things having a big impact now that I think will continue to have a big impact on this generation. They’ve had some of the same influences as Gen Z. But for them, it’s not just that they spent their adolescence in the age of the smartphone and iPads. It’s that they spent their whole lives in the age of those things. We don’t have a lot of data on them yet, but what we do have shows the impact of kids being handed an iPad as soon as they can walk. They’re not getting as much exercise and childhood obesity is very high.
SD METRO: And they’re probably in school, probably not reading hard copy books either. Are we correct about that or is that just an assumption?
Dr. Twenge: Reading is interesting because if you’re reading a book on a Kindle or an iPad, that’s still reading a book. It’s just the format is different. But high school students reading books or newspapers or pretty much any kind of long form text has plummeted. And that was true long before Gen Alpha or even Gen Z. That decline started with Gen X.
SD METRO: When you talk about individualism, I suspect there are people out there who might think it’s interchangeable with narcissism. Can you define the differences?
Dr. Twenge: Individualism is a cultural system that places more emphasis on the self and less on others. It’s often rooted in technology because as technology increases, we can do more things for ourselves. It ends up having the result of more independence. Pretty much every individualistic country in the world is more technologically advanced. But not every technologically advanced country is individualistic.
Narcissism is individualism taken to a next level that becomes maladaptive for the society and for people around you. Narcissism is focusing so much on the self that you don’t have any left for others, and just having a very inflated sense of self. Thinking you’re the best ever.
SD METRO: Don’t generations define themselves by life events, meaning historical events?
Dr. Twenge: Major events have an impact, with the COVID-19 pandemic being probably the biggest recent example. However, their long-term impact and their impact on people’s day-to-day lives doesn’t even approach the impact of technology. Consider someone who lived 200 years ago and look at why their life is different. Well, sure, wars and economic recessions, depressions and pandemics have an impact. But so much of the difference is due to faster transportation, labor saving devices, communication being faster and cheaper. That’s what has really changed our lives because that has downstream effects. It has a downstream effect on individualism. It has a downstream effect on gender roles. It has a downstream effect on how quickly or slowly people grow up. So it’s just one example. It’s called the slow life strategy, which is one of the other big effects of technology.
People get married much later than their grandparents or great-grandparents did. So that’s one example of a slow life strategy. It’s all of these ways technology has put its fingers into so many of these different realms of life. You can’t really say that as much for major events. Partially, because they don’t happen often. In the last a hundred years, there are only two events that have had an enormous impact on most people’s day-to-day lives, COVID and World War II. So why are millennials the way they are? Is it because of The Great Recession? No, because they’re doing fairly well economically. But their childhood culture emphasizing individualism is still with them.
SD METRO: The Silent Generation must’ve seen or experienced quite a bit of societal change, probably the most that’s ever been seen in the United States.
Dr. Twenge: The changes seem to have accelerated because of technology. And you think about the world the Silent Generation was born into, between the 1930s or the early 1940s, and compare that to how we live now. It’s night and day. Not just the technology, but also things like women working and more racial equality and same-sex marriage. Those are just three examples. And those were things that were not at all accepted in the 1930s and early 40s.
SD METRO: Sure. And certainly not in the 1950s either until recently, too.
Dr. Twenge: Even in the 2000s that wasn’t something people thought they’d see in their lifetime.
SD METRO: You say the Silent Generation is very trusting of others. What brings this about? Does it extend to institutions too?
Dr. Twenge: It does. I think that’s one of the big changes that you can see across all of the generations, is this breakdown in trust in others and trust in institutions. You take the Silent Generation who grew up in the 1950s where there was just a lot more trust among individual people, a lot more trust in institutions. And it’s not true anymore. I think the media has a lot to do with that. It tends to emphasize the negative. It tends to tear, as it’s some purpose in life, down certain presumptions, often things that maybe need to be questioned, but that also starts to break down a lot of trust.
SD METRO: You also say the Silent Generation is less likely to suffer from mental distress. Why is this and how are you defining mental distress?
Dr. Twenge: Mental distress can be depression or anxiety. It’s a function of the survey data that we have. That’s how we’re measuring it. So, it’s really striking that the Silent Generation has less mental distress than either of the generations on either side of them. They have less than the greatest generation and less than the Boomers. I think it’s maybe because they were not drafted to fight a war. Not as many of them were. Some were drafted to fight in Korea. But there was a lot less than World War II and Vietnam on either side of them. They grew up in a time that emphasized family and social relationships. They still put a lot of emphasis on that. They really have that bedrock sense of being connected to others, and that’s something that’s important for mental health.
SD METRO: Do they have more face-to-face connections compared to the generations that have gone after them?
Dr. Twenge: Certainly, while growing up, that’s pretty indisputable. They didn’t have any other solution.
SD METRO: You say Baby Boomers are dying of despair. What is bringing this about?
Dr. Twenge: Boomers compared to the Silent Generation are much more likely to die these deaths of despair from suicide or drug overdoses. Some of that is because Boomers did more drugs since adolescence, a stark generational difference.
When the Silent Generation were teens and young adults it was uncommon to use marijuana or really any kind of illicit drug. With Boomers, that became much more common. And I think that’s one of the things that we’re seeing with Boomers.
It’s often assumed that Boomers are the perpetrators of income inequality. The idea that they climbed the ladder and then they pulled it up so Millennials couldn’t climb it. Well, that’s not true because Millennials are doing better economically than most people think. But also, when you look at the timing, it’s actually the Greatest Generation. Those politicians who enforced the policies, which seemed to lead to more income inequality. That really started in the early 1980s. Boomers weren’t in power at that point. They were the first victims of income inequality. And that’s why you see the biggest impacts among those without a college education. So a lot of those things hit them the hardest. Maybe they’re the last generation to think, “Okay, I can graduate from high school, go get a factory job.” But then those factory jobs went away.
SD METRO: What kind of policies are you putting in there that caused this economic inequality?
Dr. Twenge: It’s complex, but you think about some of the policies during the Reagan administration and the idea of trickle-down economics. That’s where at least some of it probably came from.
SD METRO: You write that Gen X, when they were children, were pretty much isolated or didn’t have a lot of parental supervision. Has that impacted the way they live their lives? Has it done anything to them that you have not seen in other generations?
Dr. Twenge: I think it continues some of the trends from Boomers and the Silents. Those two generations also didn’t have as much supervision as children do now. So, Gen X feels like it’s the last generation that had more freedom during their childhood, more independence. And I think that’s one of the reasons they pride themselves on being tough and on knowing how to solve problems in the real world.
SD METRO: The largest generation alive today is the Millennials. Am I correct?
Dr. Twenge: Yes.
SD METRO: There’s been this criticism I’ve heard – perhaps you’ve heard it, too – that they have been slow to grow up. What’s bringing this about? Is this all technology? Is there something else going on?
Dr. Twenge: Technology is at the root, but in a good way. Better medical care has meant longer lives. So people have more time. Because of technology, like birth control, people have fewer children and nurture them more carefully. So all of this leads to what’s called a slow life strategy, of people taking longer to grow up. And that has had an impact on all the generations beginning with Boomers. For Millennials, it manifests in that they get married later and have children later and settle into careers later than previous generations. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it’s something that we’re seeing across the board. Another manifestation of slow life strategy is middle-aged people look and feel younger than their parents and grandparents did at the same age. So it’s the idea that 60 is the new 50, 50 is the new 40. That’s also part of the slow life strategy.
SD METRO: You also mentioned that Boomers, because they experienced a lot of harsh discipline growing up in comparison, wanted warmer, more positive relationships with their children. Does that help foster the slow life strategy with Millennials?
Dr. Twenge: It’s also that Boomers had their kids later and have fewer of them. And so that can change the family dynamic in a way that does tend to pull for kids being more carefully protected.
SD METRO: You also seem very critical about Millennials, talking about their self-confidence and saying it seems, compared to other previous generations, off the charts. What are you seeing?
Dr. Twenge: I should put that in context that I don’t think any generation is all good or all bad. They have their trade-offs. There’s plenty of variation within each. I think what did happen with Millennials is they really came to the peak of the emphasis on not just individualism, but everybody is special, everybody gets a trophy. These types of ideas in childhood – that we have to boost everybody’s self-esteem – so that’s going to lead to good things. Too bad that actually wasn’t based on any research and isn’t true. So, we have people going into the real world, saying, “Oh my God, nobody treats me as special.” And what a lot of Millennials will say to that is, “That wasn’t our fault.” Well, yeah, actually, I agree with that because these are big cultural changes, and they did happen. And that, many people would argue, did them a disservice.
SD METRO: And do we blame their Baby Boomer parents for this?
Dr. Twenge: I really don’t think we should be using blame or fault or any of those things. I think it’s counterproductive and encourages a bunch of finger-pointing and fighting, when the reality is things have changed. It’s not just parents. It’s everything. It’s media. It’s the structure of society. It’s technology. It’s so many things that any one person, any one parent, doesn’t control. You could try to raise your kid saying, “Self-esteem isn’t particularly important.” But then they’re going to learn it at school. So, overall, that’s not really the point of trying to understand generations and these differences because we’re all in this together. It’s about understanding each other better. And that’s really why I wrote the book. Let’s try to understand each other better.
SD METRO: Let’s talk Millennials and sexuality. You write that lesbian sexual experience quadrupled from Boomers to Millennials, while gay male sex doubled from Boomers to Millennials. What’s bringing this about?
Dr. Twenge: A lot of it is greater acceptance. It’s just individualism at the root of this, of people are different, including their sexuality.
SD METRO: Is it the same thing with drugs? That more accepted with Millennials compared to previous generations?
Dr. Twenge: It’s not as linear. There’s some collinear patterns that happen there. If you look at high school students, the vast majority of drug use is marijuana. So that was really high in the late 70s with the Boomers. Then it actually went down for Gen Z. Then it came back for Millennials, maybe because they had Boomer parents, some people have speculated. And then it’s been pretty stable, at least among high school students. It’s gone up a lot more among young adults. But it’s been stable for the last 10 or 15 years or so. It definitely has connections to individualism, but there’s a lot of other factors too.
SD METRO: Millennials, you say, are less religious. Why?
Dr. Twenge: So, I think that’s also individualism. With religion, you have to believe in something bigger than yourself, and you have to follow certain rules. And that’s not a great fit in a culture that says it’s all about you. And that’s not just Millennials. That trend has been going on for a while. I put that in the Millennial chapter because that’s when there’s a little bit of an inflection point. But it has been happening for several decades.
SD METRO: When you think about Gen Z, is there anything else you’ve noticed that makes them stand out?
Dr. Twenge: The other thing that’s really striking about Gen Z is their relationship with gender. They’re much more likely than other generations to say there’s more than two genders. They’re more likely to identify as transgender. They’re more likely to identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual. A lot of Gen Zers have a lot of language around gender and around sexual orientation, that many of their Gen X parents have never heard of. A lot of Gen Xers have learned a lot of language around gender and sexual orientation from Gen Z kids.
SD METRO: You’ve done a lot of work. It’s very, very clear from the books I’ve seen. I’ve read. Let me ask you this, what do all these generational differences mean for the country? Do you have any speculation, any ideas, of where you see things going?
Dr. Twenge: That’s the last chapter of the book, the future. What can we take from these datasets to figure out where we’re going next? So one thing I dug into recently in my Substack (https://substack.com/@jeanmtwenge) was to update some of the data on attitudes around work. There’s certainly some good news in this area. Gen Z, for example, is more likely to say they want a job that’s directly helpful to others compared to previous generations. But there’s also some striking trends just in the last couple years around work ethic or work-life balance. Fewer 18-year-olds say they’re willing to work overtime. And this is a really quick change. This is in 2021, data 2022, compared to just 2020 and 2019.
So less likely to say that work’s going to be a central part of their lives, less likely to say they would work even if they had enough money. Less likely to say that they think their chosen job is going to be very satisfying. We’re probably at the beginning of a real reckoning around the meaning of work. And I think that will continue to play out, especially as more and more Gen Zers enter the workforce. The oldest Gen Zers are 29. So, if you’re thinking your youngest employees are Millennials, they’re not anymore.
Gen Z is very different from Millennials, so that’s another thing. They’re much more pessimistic compared to millennials at the same age.
Another thing on the horizon, is the birth rate coming back up? My answer to that is very simple. No. Because not only has that been on a substantial decline since 2007, but in the last five to 10 years, for the first time, there’s been a decline in the number of 18-year-olds who say they want to have children. That had been at a very high level and stable since the 1970s, until the transition between Millennials and Gen Z. So, Millennials brought down the birth rate, and Gen Z is going to keep it there because they’re not even saying they want kids when they’re 18.
SD METRO: But don’t views change between, say, the time you’re 18, to the time you’re 35 to 40? Or who you are at 18, does that pretty much carry through the rest of your life?
Dr. Twenge: There certainly can be some changes. But I think the reason I don’t think that particular attitude is going to change is that it’s rooted in things that tend to be fairly stable. So like having an optimistic versus pessimistic point of view, that can certainly change with the way things go in the country. But that’s a fundamental worldview that tends to be relatively stable.
SD METRO: When you think about the studies that you’ve done on generations, what scares you the most? What do you get worried about? What keeps you awake when you’re thinking about what you’ve learned? Is there something on the horizon that most people are not recognizing?
Dr. Twenge: The most concerning trend is the huge increase in depression and self-harm among teens and young adults. There are big increases. Teen depression doubled between 2011 and 2019. In other words, before the pandemic. And it kept going up during the pandemic. And that spread to young adults, and now it’s spreading to adults in their 30s. And so if many people are struggling with mental health issues and depression, what does that mean? What does that mean for the people who say therapists and other people in the mental health field are overwhelmed? What does it mean for just the number of people suffering? What does it mean for the workplace? What does it mean for family life?
SD METRO: What drives your passion for this? You’ve been doing this for a long time, so it’s obviously more than just a job for you, it would seem. What’s bringing this all about?
Dr. Twenge: I like understanding people and trying to help us understand each other better. That’s definitely a core passion. But even better, I like trying to do that by listening to what people say in surveys and then crunching that data. I have come to realize that my favorite thing is opening up those datasets and seeing what it can tell me.
They’re what people say about themselves. It’s about listening. And I think that’s one of the amazing things that you can do, in some of these datasets. Some of them have millions of people. I can listen to what is happening to people, how they’re feeling, how they’re spending their time, and what’s important to them, by looking at these big survey datasets. These huge rows of numbers represent people’s lives, and that’s what I like the most about it.
SD METRO: You teach at San Diego State University. What are you seeing in students today? What are they like compared to when you were going to college?
Dr. Twenge: The class I teach the most often is Personality Psychology. It’s a large lecture class. The downside of that is I don’t get to know my students personally as much. But I can certainly see some of the generational trends showing up. Students now are not as talkative as they were 15 years ago, when it was Millennials. I’ve noticed that transition, which makes a lot of sense, given the psychological profile of those groups. The good news is they’re also not as entitled. The Gen Z students are not quite as likely to show some of those symptoms of, “Hey, I need to …” Because I had Millennial students say to me a long time ago, “Oh, I need to take the final late going to Vegas for my birthday.” Really? What’s your boss going to say? This is a senior.
So, I was like, “What’s your boss going to say in three months when you say, ‘I can’t make the big presentation because I’m going to Vegas for my buddy’s birthday’, or whatever — Seriously? So, you don’t see as much of that anymore. My students are very, very nice, and they validated a research result that I just saw, that there’d been some issues with empathy declining among college students. And then that turned around after 2009 and it came back up. And I absolutely see that in my students. They care a lot about their fellow students in the world, and I think maybe because of that higher level of empathy, they’re. pleasant, nice, and very considerate.
SD METRO: Thank you, Dr. Twenge.