Generation Me--Revised and Updated

by Jean M. Twenge

  How does this square with the data from large, nationally representative surveys? GenMe’ers were less concerned for others than Boomers or GenX’ers were at the same age—fewer donated to charities, fewer were willing to change their actions to help others, fewer expressed empathy for other groups, and fewer wanted a job “directly helpful to others.” For example, 22% of Boomers in the late 1970s said they had already contributed money to “charities to help fight diseases (cancer, heart disease, etc.),” compared to only 14% of GenMe in 2010–12. Forty percent of Boomers in 1976–78 said they would be “willing to eat less meat and more grains and vegetables, if it would help provide food for starving people,” compared to 33% of GenMe in 2010–12. Eleven percent of Boomers took the easy way out in 1976–78 by agreeing that “maybe some minority groups do get unfair treatment, but that’s no business of mine,” which jumped to 17% in 2010–12. Even when compared to GenX in the 1990s, GenMe was lower in concern for others in the 2010s. These are not large declines, but they run directly counter to the narrative, such as that mentioned by Seligson, that GenMe/Millennials are instead more altruistic than previous generations.

  Seligson is correct that volunteering and community service rose between GenX and GenMe. However, community service was increasingly required for high school graduation over this period. This, the only concern-for-others item that increased significantly, is also the only one with an outside explanation. The rise in volunteering is one reason that the popular perception of Millennials as socially conscious altruists has continued despite other evidence to the contrary. However, Boomer teachers and administrators required Millennials to perform community service—a kind of “involuntary volunteering.” It was not their idea. They may have learned from it, and it may be a good experience, but the impulse did not originate with them.

  Does this mean that no one in this generation wants to help others? Of course not. Many do—but slightly fewer than when Boomers and GenX’ers were the same age. And—another flaw in Seligson’s argument—the studies do not find that “all” GenMe’ers are narcissists, simply that the average level is higher now than it once was.

  What about the increase in Teach For America applications? It might not be a coincidence that applications increased just as the late 2000s recession hit and unemployment, especially for young college graduates, skyrocketed. Since the program has only been around for a decade, it’s not possible to make a generational comparison with GenX or Boomers. The closest we can get is to compare the percentage of Boomers interested in the Peace Corps and GenMe interested in the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps in the college student survey, and GenMe’s interest was lower. As we’ll explore in chapter 8 on the workplace, GenMe’s desire for jobs that are helpful to others or that contribute to society is no higher than Boomers’ or GenX’ers’ was at the same age.

  Declining concern for others appears in the larger culture as well—specifically, in a large analysis of language from the Google Books database. Psychologists Pelin and Selin Kesebir found that the use of words describing moral virtues, such as decency, honesty, patience, and compassion, declined significantly in American books over time. UCLA psychologist Patricia Greenfield found that the use of individualistic words such as choose, get, feel, and unique increased, while communal words such as obliged, give, act, obedience, authority, and belong decreased. The increase in get and decline in give is a neat summary of the cultural changes of the last few decades.

  Among the 18-to-23-year-olds interviewed by Christian Smith, few were interested in volunteering or giving to charity. “They are so focused on their own personal lives, especially on trying to stand on their own two feet, that they seem incapable of thinking more broadly about community involvement, good citizenship, or even very modest levels of charitable giving,” Smith concludes. One of his young interviewees said, “Somebody needs to give money to me!” Another commented about volunteering, “I actually don’t have the time for it. I feel like if I’m going to do something good for the community, I might as well do something good that I get paid for too. I mean like, uh-huh, but I don’t have a lot of time.”

  The good news is that 72% of 2013 college students said that “helping others in difficulty” was important, about the same as the 70% of Boomers who thought this goal important in 1966 and more than the 62% who endorsed this goal in 2000. In addition, high school students expressed more concern for others during the recession years of 2008 to 2010, compared to those in 2004 to 2006. However, concern for others did not return to the higher levels of the 1970s. Compared to earlier generations, the overall GenMe profile is higher positive self-views and extrinsic goals and slightly lower communal and altruistic goals. With “becoming very well-off financially” and “helping others in difficulty” both ranked as highly important, some in GenMe may be following a “rich philanthropist” model.

  Sara Konrath and her colleagues used the cross-temporal meta-analysis technique to examine another important aspect of concern for others: empathy, or the ability to identify with others’ emotions and experiences. Among 13,737 college students who filled out the empathy questionnaire between 1979 and 2009, empathic concern and perspective-taking declined precipitously. By 2009, 75% of college students scored lower in empathy than the average 1979 student. In another over-time study, Lori Malahy and her colleagues examined scores on a scale measuring the belief in a just world, or that people get what they deserve (for example, agreeing that “people who meet with misfortune have often brought it on themselves”). They found that 75% of 2006 college students scored higher in belief in a just world than the average 1970s student.

  Konrath’s and Malahy’s data strongly suggest that the idea of GenMe/Millennials as “the empathetic generation” or “Generation We” (promoted by Jeffrey Arnett, Eric Greenberg, and others) is not accurate. But what about GenMe’s tolerance and belief in equality—doesn’t that mean they understand others better? GenMe is indeed tolerant and accepting of equality based on gender, race, and sexual orientation—much more than Boomers and GenX’ers were when they were young. That’s the focus of chapter 7. However, egalitarianism and empathy are two different things. Disregarding race, gender, or sexual orientation is not the same as feeling compassion for someone else’s experience.

  The case of two freshman roommates at Rutgers University illustrates this principle. Dharun Ravi thought it would be fun to use his webcam to live-stream his roommate Tyler Clementi’s sexual encounter. When the opportunity presented itself a second time, he tweeted his friends, “It’s happening again! Yay!”—so they could join him in watching Clementi make out with another man. Clementi, gay and struggling with his identity, was devastated. A few days later, he jumped off the George Washington Bridge to his death. Ravi was eventually convicted of 15 criminal counts including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation.

  By all accounts, Ravi was not particularly homophobic; he sent Clementi a text saying, “I’ve known you were gay and I have no problem with it.” But he did think that live-streaming Clementi’s sexual encounter with another man was funny. Ravi was clearly not thinking about the effect this so-called prank would have on his roommate. Instead, he was focused on entertaining himself and his friends at Clementi’s expense. The idea that everyone is equal didn’t work out well: Ravi didn’t seem to realize that Clementi’s homosexuality made him more vulnerable. If he’d been truly empathetic and taken Clementi’s perspective, things might have turned out very differently. Tolerance is not enough.

  GenMe’s belief in equality is one of this generation’s greatest strengths, but it does not always mean GenMe’ers are good at empathizing. That’s a different skill, and one that may not come easily in our self-focused culture.

  LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I’M ON FACEBOOK!

  When I describe the rise in narcissism, the most common question—actually more of a statement—I hear is “It’s because of Facebook, right?”

  Maybe, but maybe not. The rise in narcissism began long befo
re Facebook, or even the Internet, existed. But some of the rise in recent years may be due to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social networking sites that allow users to share their pictures, witticisms, and breakfast choices with hundreds if not thousands of people. At least five studies have found a correlation between Narcissistic Personality Inventory scores and number of friends on Facebook—in other words, narcissists thrive on social networking sites. Larry Rosen and his colleagues found that people who spent more time on social networking sites were more likely to suffer from personality disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder or histrionic personality disorder (he calls the phenomenon iDisorders). Another study found that narcissists, especially those high in feelings of superiority or exhibitionism, posted to Twitter and Facebook more often.

  But do social networking sites cause narcissism or self-esteem? That’s a different question—perhaps people with positive self-views are drawn to social networking sites, instead of social networking sites causing positive self-views, or some third variable explains the correlation. My colleagues and I designed two experiments to get around this problem. Students who already had a social networking page were randomly assigned to either edit their social networking page or trace their route to campus on Google Maps. For the first experiment in 2007, we used MySpace, which was popular at the time. Students who edited their MySpace page subsequently scored higher on narcissism. Two years later we repeated the experiment using Facebook. Those who edited their Facebook page (versus using Google Maps) did not score any higher on narcissism, but they did score higher on self-esteem. This suggests that social networking sites do cause positive self-views, but that the results vary depending on the specific site.

  Many more studies need to look carefully at the relationship between social networking and positive self-views before we can fully understand their relationship to each other. It seems clear that the two are connected, but which causes which and exactly what traits are affected needs much more study. It makes intuitive sense that social networking sites would increase self-focus: they give people a platform to express themselves to others, however and whenever they want. Some people take and post dozens of pictures of themselves (selfies) a day. The goal of Twitter is to amass followers, a term that smacks of narcissistic allusions to royalty or celebrity. Although many people use social networking sites to keep in touch with friends and family, others seem to see it as a platform for sharing every bit of themselves—or at least the alluring bits—with an adoring audience. Chloe, 18, writes of Instagram, “I have almost 10,000 followers and many of my friends are not even at 1,000. I take pride in my followers and try hard to gain them. I post glamorous pictures—I guess I enjoy portraying my life as fabulous.”

  Do social networking sites increase social connectedness—and thus increase community feeling and civic-mindedness? I reviewed the research literature on this topic for the Journal of College and Character. Although several studies have found that social networking sites improve the perception of social connectedness, they seem to do little to increase deeper involvement or engender actual help. For example, one study had students ask their Facebook friends to help them with a class project by rating a series of pictures. Only 21% helped. Another study examined whether college students’ online engagement in a social issue (the 2011 Wisconsin public-employee union bill) translated to participation in off-line protests. Students who used Facebook to express their opinion were more likely to participate in off-line protests, but students who used Facebook to gather information were not any more likely to participate off-line. Thus students who were already interested in the issue used Facebook to tell others about their interest, but learning about the issue on Facebook did not produce off-line action. A third study, conducted just before the 2008 presidential election, found that those who spent the most time on Facebook were less likely to participate in politics outside of the site (such as watching the debates, signing a petition, or writing to a government official).

  Another example is the “Kony 2012” video, which garnered tens of millions of views by the end of March 2012. The video depicted African warlord Joseph Kony’s forced recruitment of child soldiers. Invisible Children, who produced the video, quickly sold out of “action kits” with posters and stickers, and the video made national news for weeks. However, when the April 20, 2012, “day of action” named in the video arrived, virtually no one appeared for the in-person protest.

  The rise in narcissism has deep roots—technology is far from the only cause. The individualism in American culture also goes far beyond self-esteem and narcissism. It’s not just that we feel better about ourselves, but that we even think to ask the question. We fixate on self-esteem, and unthinkingly build narcissism, because we believe that the needs of the individual are paramount. This will stay with us even if self-esteem programs end up in the dustbin of history, and it is the focus of the next chapter.

  3

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  You Can Be Anything You Want to Be

  In the animated children’s movie Planes, Dusty wants to be a racing plane. “You are not built to race; you are built to dust crops,” his friend Dottie warns him. But Dusty enters an international flying race—and wins. In another 2013 movie, Turbo is a snail who yearns to race. Close to the finish line in the Indianapolis 500, his once-skeptical brother urges him on: “It is in you! It’s always been in you!” Turbo wins, “proving,” as Luke Epplin observes in the Atlantic, “that one needn’t be human nor drive a car to win the country’s most prestigious auto race.” Epplin notes, “The restless protagonists of these films never have to wake up to the reality that crop-dusters simply can’t fly faster than sleek racing aircraft. Instead, it’s the nay-saying authority figures who need to be enlightened about the importance of never giving up on your dreams, no matter how irrational, improbable, or disruptive to the larger community.”

  These movies are just the most recent example of the relentless cultural message to young people: you can be anything you want to be, as long as you believe in yourself. In the Google database of American books, the use of the phrase you can be anything increased 12 times between 1970 and 2008.

  This got its start during the teen years of GenX. In his book What Really Happened to the Class of ’93, Chris Colin notes that his classmates were constantly told, “You can be whatever you want to be” and “Nothing is impossible.” His classmates mention this time and time again. Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner, authors of Quarterlife Crisis, agree: “For all of their lives, twentysomethings have been told that they can be whatever they want to be, do whatever they want to do.” Lia Macko, the coauthor of a similar book (Midlife Crisis at 30), dedicates the work to her mother, “for truly instilling in me the belief that Anything Is Possible,” which Macko describes as “the unqualified mantra of our youth.”

  These messages begin early. When the boy band ‘N Sync appeared on the kids’ show Sesame Street, they sang a song called “Believe in Yourself.” Some people might tell you there are things you can’t do, the song says. But you can be whatever you want to be, as long as you “believe in yourself.” (What if they want to be brats?) One of the most popular Barney (the annoying purple dinosaur) videotapes for toddlers promoted a similar message: it’s called You Can Be Anything!

  And so it goes, into high school as well. On Glee, Brittany has always been portrayed as a poor student; she once said she had a 0.0 grade point average. But in her senior year, MIT suddenly discovers she’s a math genius. How did that happen? “It wasn’t until I joined this club that I really started believing in myself,” Brittany explains. “And as soon as I did that, as soon as I started believing that maybe I was smart after all, I think the whole world did too.” So the key to academic success is not hard work, involved parents, good teachers, or years of study, but believing in yourself.

  As Epplin observes of the kids’ movie characters, “It’s enough for them simply to show up with no experience at the most competitive rac
es, dig deep within themselves, and out-believe their opponents.” When closely examined, these are ridiculous ideas, but they are routinely put forth as “inspirational” stories. Nor is this attitude surprising given other trends: The logical outcome of every kid’s having high self-esteem is every kid’s thinking that he can achieve anything.

  In an episode of the family show 7th Heaven, 21-year-old Lucy gives a sermon to the young women in the congregation: “God wants us to know and love ourselves. He also wants us to know our purpose, our passion. . . . So I ask you . . . ‘What have you dreamt about doing?’ . . . What you are waiting for is already inside of you. God has already equipped us with everything we need to live full and rich lives. It is our responsibility to make that life happen—to make our dreams happen.” So if you want to do it, you can make it happen. But what if your dream is to be a movie star or an Olympic athlete? Or even a doctor? What if we’re not actually equipped with absolutely everything we need—say, a one-in-a-million body, Hollywood connections, or the grades to make it into med school? Well, you should just believe in yourself more. Yes, some people will achieve these dreams, but it will likely be due to their talent and hard work, not their superior self-belief.