Peering Awkwardly over the Generation Gap

books:


	• Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than ... Jean M. Twenge Free Press, 2007 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 73 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Everyone needs to read this book!

A reviewer, college professor., May 9, 2008,
Everyone needs to read this book!
I used this book as a textbook in my college research class. My students could not stop talking about it. Very well researched and well written, it is an interesting read as well. My students told me that this was not only one book that they would not be 'selling back to the bookstore', but that they would be leaving it 'around' for their parents to read.

I am very grateful for the book

I was born in 1959 and my son in 1984. The book helped me to see myself as a member of my generation. I was born and spend first 30 years of my life in Russia and would never expect to fit description of American baby boomers. Never-the-less a lot of things are pretty true for me.

The book helped me to understand why my son does what he does. Even though he is pretty intelligent, his expectations do not correspond to the reality. I am giving this book to him, hoping it will help him come to earth sooner. I think that having so many enlightening stories about similar young people will help him see himself in more real light.

I value this book as a parent/child/understanding toolkit. I don't have an opinion on how much input it added to psych research, neither do I care about this view. Having a lot of negative reviews (from my perspective) often illustrates that the truth hurts. A natural way to deal with pain is denial.

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Peering Awkwardly over the Generation Gap

I read Jean Twenge's "Generation Me" as a broadside swipe at Howe and Strauss' theory that the rising Millenial generation will be a great civic generation. Instead Twenge argues that the Millenials, who she calls Generation Me, are a bunch of selfish narcissists, disengaged in the body politic, and will have their unrealistic expectations cruelly dashed by the real world, leading ultimately to a generation of depressed dysfunctional adults.

To lead off the bat, I don't buy Twenge's argument. Nevertheless, I found her book a fascinating assemblage of statistics, social science and anecdotes, based in large on the research that Twenge has conducted over the last few decades. Like any other social science book, the strength of the argument depends on crisp definitions of crucial ideas and in order to make her argument, Twenge has done something quite unusual - she has conflated what most other researchers consider two separate generations into one single generation. That is, she defines Generation Me as the cohort born from 1970 to 2000, a very long 30 year generation. Other researchers typically define Gen X as those born from 1968 to 1980, and the Millenials as those born from 1980 to 2000.

Twenge doesn't really give an explicit reason for defining GenMe as such except for a curt "it's clear that the GenX description is incomplete and misguided." But her very own argument later in the book would argue against her very own definition. The narcism that Twenge describes in GenMe is traced to the wholesale introduction of the self-esteem curricular in schools in 1980. This would immediately suggest that there is a generation gap born before 1980 (GenX) and after (Millenial). Indeed, reading the book, Twenge constantly admonishes the younger members for being self-absorbed, optimistic, painfully open about their problems and non-deferential to authority. She castigates the young for being completely different to her own remembered childhood in everything from movies, tatoos, music, sex, relationship to parents, scholastic attitudes and attitude towards authority.

Indeed, Twenge spends a great part of the book dispensing relationship advice to the young. It is apparent that Twenge believes that loneliness for a single person is the greatest danger to await the tender arms of the young. Her greatest fear is that the exaggerated sense of entitlement for the young will prevent them from finding a satisfying life with a partner. In short, Twenge is practically screaming out a generation gap between her and the kids she describes, even though they are supposed to be in the very same generation as herself.

So why did she define GenMe like that? The reason, I suspect, is that Twenge's argument about the nature of GenMe completely falls apart if the distinction between those born before 1980 and those born after are made clear. If read carefully, her statistics about GenMe being a generation of criminals, low civic engagment, and depression (compared to the previous Boomer generations) are only drawn from statistics about "the first third" of Generation Me. In other words, it is precisely Gen X who are disengaged with politics, commit more violent crimes, and suffer much greater rates of depression. But we already knew that.

Twenge's basic argument about the younger half of GenMe (those born after 1980) is that the self-esteem movement would lead to more narcism, more selfish behavior and disengagement with politics. The greater sense of entitlement would lead to greater disappointment when arriving in the adult world and thus lead to depression. Except this argument doesn't account for why those born in the 1970's (GenX) suffer these same effects without having been brought up under the self-esteem movement, but more importantly, her statistics don't support this argument.

If we take Twenge's own date of 1980 seriously, we have to consider those born after 1980 differently to those born before. Since Twenge uses the statistics of GenX'ers to describe the future of the Millenials, she has put the cart before the horse. In fact, she has even had to massage her own data to come up with this conclusion. If you read her own data carefully, you will find that the cohort classed as Gen X definitely has incredibly low voting participation and community service, but the next generation down shows a marked increase. Since this doesn't fit into Twenge's argument, she dismisses is the young kids being susceptible to lame "Get out the vote" campaigns, and argues that the increased community service is a forced-fed reaction to the school system. Her condensencion to the younger generation is particularly acute.

Indeed, in trying to argue that the Millenials, or younger half of GenMe is violent due to their greater sense of entitlement, she doesn't use any statistics but just cites the Columbine shootings and darkly suggests that the self-esteem movement has created an army of little Columbine killers. This is a shockingly poor argument.

Still, I found the assemblage of statistics from a broad range of areas stimulating to think through, and it clarified a lot of my thinking about the Millenial generation. Even though this book is in the end, one woman's misunderstanding of the widening generation gap between her and the next generation, the collection of statistics and analysis is well worth the effort in dissecting.

Twenge's analysis of the effects of the self-esteem movement is colored by her GenX values. All she sees is disaster lying in watch for the future generation. Self-esteem, she argues, leads to narcism. However, the one thing she misses is that the Millennial generation is an incredibly gregarious generation, from im, sms, summer camps, myspace. They are connected in a way that Gen X never was. The millennials maraud in groups as every narcissist needs a crowd. It is precisely this social aspect of mutually re-inforcing mountains of self-esteem that dampens the negative aspects of excessive self-esteem. It would be interesting to see a deeper analysis of how this group dynamic will play out in future years. One possibility is that the Millennials, when they hit the world in the coming years, will demand the best from society, whether through the voting booth, or community service, or changes in the workplace. I sincerely hope that they don't accept their lot as an army of temp workers and disposable mcjob components that has become Gen X. Instead of analyzing the Millenials through their worst tendencies, what would you see if you looked at their best?

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Called "The Entitlement Generation" or Gen Y, they are storming into schools, colleges, and businesses all over the country. In this provocative new book, headline-making psychologist and social commentator Dr. Jean Twenge explores why the young people she calls "Generation Me" -- those born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s -- are tolerant, confident, open-minded, and ambitious but also cynical, depressed, lonely, and anxious.

Herself a member of Generation Me, Dr. Twenge uses findings from the largest intergenerational research study ever conducted -- with data from 1.3 million respondents spanning six decades -- to reveal how profoundly different today's young adults are. Here are the often shocking truths about this generation, including dramatic differences in sexual behavior, as well as controversial predictions about what the future holds for them and society as a whole. Her often humorous, eyebrow-raising stories about real people vividly bring to life the hopes and dreams, disappointments and challenges of Generation Me.

GenMe has created a profound shift in the American character, changing what it means to be an individual in today's society. The collision of this generation's entitled self-focus and today's competitive marketplace will create one of the most daunting challenges of the new century. Engaging, controversial, prescriptive, funny, Generation Me will give Boomers new insight into their offspring, and help those in their teens, 20s, and 30s finally make sense of themselves and their goals and find their road to happiness.

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