Jean M. Twenge - Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--And More Miserable Than Ever Before

Praise for Generation Me

Those vague hunches we have about this generationTwenge does a huge, decidedly un-GenX amount of research and replaces them with actual data. Her writing is lucid and entertaining, and shes unafraid to draw bold conclusions when necessary. Its nothing new for a generation to be misunderstood by popular and commercial culture, but the one she describes has been misdrawn to the point of absurdity; refreshing, then, to have someone swap those persistent old myths for thoughtful, careful observations.

Chris Colin, author of What Really Happened to the Class of 93: Start-Ups, Dropouts, and Other Navigations through an Untidy Decade

Jean Twenge is not only dedicated as a researcher and social scientist, but she is clearly passionate about it. In this forward-thinking and clear-eyed book, she immediately stands out as a social critic of substance, in a world of dogmatic and chattering media pundits who are only guessing when they are covering major social trends and generational changes.

Paula Kamen, author of Feminist Fatale and Her Way: Young Women Remake the Sexual Revolution

Everyone knows that American society is changing, but no one until now has documented how the people themselves are changing. In this startling, witty, and refreshing book, a pioneering researcher explains how the very personality of the average American is different. An upbringing that featured forming rather than meeting high expectations, and feeling good before doing good, has resulted in a generation with the highest self-esteem on recordand the highest rates of depression. Based on careful, groundbreaking research but filled with touching and amusing stories, this book explains exactly how the American character is changing and evolving, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Americans should read this book and ponder whether we should raise the next generation on unrealistic hopes, undisciplined self-assertion, and endless, baseless self-congratulation.

Roy F. Baumeister, author of The Cultural Animal: Human Nature, Meaning, and Social Life , and Eppes Eminent Professor of Psychology, Florida State University

Dr. Jean Twenge provides an insightful analysis of the young adults she labels GenMetheir supreme self-confidence in their own worth, their concern with doing things their way, and the benefits and costs that come from their focus on themselves. Twenge draws upon her outstanding research to describe generational differences and their sources, lending an authority to her analysis that few previous commentators on GenMe have enjoyed.

Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, PhD, Yale University professor and author of Women Who Think Too Much

Jean Twenge has the intelligence and courage to voice a concern that is in the minds of all todays parents. If you want your child to succeed in todays world, read this book.

Mona Lisa Schulz, MD, PhD, author of The New Feminine Brain

Twenges book is comprehensive... filled with statistics and thoughtful observations about the group shes dubbed Generation Me... accessible and a must-read.

Booklist

[The] book is livened with analysis of films, magazines and TV shows, and with anecdotal stories from her life and others. The real basis of her argument, however, lies in her 14 years of research comparing the results of personality tests given to boomers when they were under 30 and those given to GenMeers today.... Many of her findings are fascinating. And her call to ditch the self-esteem movement in favor of education programs that encourage empathy and real accomplishment could spare some Meers from the depression that often occurs when they hit the realities of todays increasingly competitive workplace.

Publishers Weekly

Twenge tells an engaging story, fueled and supported by a solid base of data, illustrative quotes from her and others research, and barometric examples from TV shows, movies, comics, and advertisements.... Throughout the book, her analyses of myriad topics articulated a number of ideas on the tip of my minds tongue.

AARP the Magazine

This book should be required reading for parents-to-be.

The Washington Post

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To Craig, for my family

Y oung people are angry.

Told they could be anything they wanted to be, they face widespread unemployment. Raised on dreams of material wealth, more than a third live with their parents well into their 20s. No one told them it would be this hard, they say, and older generations dont understand how difficult it is to find a job, cover the rent, and pay off their huge student loans. Young people are told to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, observed Tiffany Vang, 23, in the Twin Cities Daily Planet . But were not even wearing the same shoes anymore; were given high heels to race in this catch-22 marathon. Its become a rite of passage for people my age to work for free even after college. It bothers her, she says, when someone tells a young person, You will be fine. Because what if shes not?

We are said to be entitled, writes cartoonist Matt Bors, 30, on cnn.com. We think we deserve something, that the world should hand us something for being here. We do. Like jobs... because student loans cant be paid off with air. He concludes, Stop hating on Millennials. We didnt create this mess. We came late to the banquet and were served up crumbs. Which we will Instagram before we eat. #YUM.

A lot has changed since the first edition of Generation Me was published in April 2006. At the time, the economy was doing well. Even so, I predicted that this generation would find the transition to adulthood difficult: After a childhood of optimism and high expectations, reality hit them like a smack in the face. That became even more true when the Great Recession hit in 2007. Technology has also fundamentally changed our world and this generation in particular. Back in 2006, only college students could get a Facebook account. YouTube had premiered just a year before, Twitter went online a few months later, and the iPhone debuted soon after. The generational conversation is also very different. In 2006, the generation born after 1980variously called GenY or Millennialswas rarely discussed, outside of a book declaring them the next Greatest Generation, a few articles praising their high school community service, andparadoxicallyother articles describing them as brash and entitled.

Things are different now. We take smartphones, social networking, and streaming video for granted. Gay marriage is legal and a black man has been elected presidenttwice. Millennialsthe common label for the group I call Generation Meare now endlessly dissected. At least 10 books advise managers on how to work with them. HBOs Girls depicts their struggles to reach independent adulthood, and Glee highlights their yearning for fame and tolerance for diversity. Time magazine, which featured Baby Boomers and Generation X on covers when their inaugural members were still in their 20s, finally published a cover article on Millennials in May 2013 when its oldest members were 31seven years after Generation Me appeared. It was titled The Me Me Me Generation.

The article spawned a huge reaction, from parody covers to opinion pieces. In the comments, the blog posts, and the videos, the emotion nearly leaps off the computer screen. One video featured a group of GenMeers mock-apologizing, saying, You raised us to believe that we were specialso special we didnt have to do anything to earn it.... Were really sorry we suck so much. But, they say, its the Boomers fault, not theirs: Its not like we jacked up college tuition prices, destroyed the manufacturing industry, started two quagmire wars, gutted the unions, destroyed the global economy, or left our offspring with an environmentally devastated planet.... It would be crazy if there were a generation that recklessly awful, huh? GenMes other responses to the article varied from Yes, but we actually are awesome to But older generations have always said younger generations were more self-centered.