Generation Me--Revised and Updated

by Jean M. Twenge

  In The Disappearance of Childhood, Neil Postman argues that television and movies have removed the usual barriers to young people’s learning about sex. Any casual flip through the channels confirms this argument. Perlstein saw the effects of this in middle school, where sexual terms and talk are “part of their vocabulary and psyche in a way that it didn’t used to be.”

  The Internet has brought this situation to a whole new level. So much porn is out there that the hit musical Avenue Q claims, in its funniest song, that “The Internet Is for Porn.” When 12-year-olds are looking at it, though, it’s not funny anymore. In the New York Times Magazine article on hooking up, many boys said they’d begun looking at porn on the Internet pretty regularly by 12 or 13. “Who needs the hassle of dating when I’ve got online porn?” asked one Boston teenager. A Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 70% of 15-to-17-year-old teens have seen Internet porn. In case you’re behind on your Web surfing, this is not just ordinary erotica we’re talking about; a lot of it is hard-core bondage and lots of other stuff I don’t even want to think about. If that weren’t scary enough, young girls who post to Internet message boards sometimes find themselves pursued by older men. It’s no wonder that parents are concerned about these issues—sex just seems so much more available, and so much more dangerous, than it was when they were young.

  About a third of teens over 15 have sexted—sent nude or nearly nude pictures of themselves. Not only are they titillating, but receiving such a picture accomplishes another important goal among GenMe: “It’s a big ego boost,” explained Ethan Anderson, 17, in a Time magazine story. Teens can also send explicit pictures using Snapchat, which deletes the picture within a few minutes. This is useful in a world in which explicit pictures can be used as weapons if they don’t automatically disappear. “If the girl . . . goes around saying she doesn’t like me . . . I’ll have that picture of her,” says Dre Gambrell, 18. With teens communicating primarily by text, cues to sexual availability are now different—but still given. “There’s some that have the ‘Heyyy’ with the extra y’s and the [emoticon], and that means this conversation could possibly go somewhere,” says Dre. “They’re probably the hooking-up type.”

  THE DOWNSIDES: STDS AND UNWANTED PREGNANCY

  Possibly because of all of this hooking up, rates of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) have increased over the last decade: the rate of syphilis cases doubled between 2001 and 2012, and chlamydia cases increased 82% (the exception: gonorrhea cases declined 16%). In an interview in Emerging Adulthood, one young man said he found out that a woman he slept with had been with a male stripper. After “doing the math,” he says he thought, “ ‘Holy cow! I had sex with California just now!’ And that made me nervous.”

  One study examined the sexual geography of a small-town high school in the Midwest over eighteen months. About half of the students were sexually active, and these teens began having sex, on average, at age 15. Of the 832 students surveyed, 288 were linked in an elaborate chain of sexual contacts that, the authors say, is “the worst-case scenario” for the spread of STDs. This occurred because many students had several partners, who themselves had several partners, thus creating an elaborate web of connections. This map differed quite a bit from previous studies on adult sex, which usually find that only a few people provide most of the links in the chain; the chain ends with less promiscuous people. Not so here, where 61% of the sexually active adolescents had had more than one sexual partner in the eighteen-month span. The recent prevalence of hooking up suggests that STDs may increase in the coming years.

  The spread of STDs may be exacerbated by young people’s seeing sex portrayed on television without any reference to safe-sex practices. A Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 75% of TV shows contain sexual content, but only 15% of those mention safe sex. Movies are similar—sexual encounters rarely feature condoms. Presumably, this is because sex sells but protection doesn’t. When watching TV, says college freshman Joyce Bryn, “No one wants to see anyone say, ‘Hold on, let me put on a condom.’ ”

  The sexual life of GenMe has always included AIDS. With the new prevalence of hookups, condoms are pretty close to becoming the fashion statement this Trojan ad suggests they are.

  But maybe they should, because sex can now kill you. Just as the early wave of GenX was heading into our teenage years in the mid-1980s, the threat of AIDS broke onto the national media scene after Rock Hudson’s death from the disease. We were welcomed into sexuality by the scary equation that sex = death. GenMe’ers have never known a world without AIDS. If you want to capture the purest form of terror and anxiety in a bottle, talk to someone who has just taken an HIV blood test and is waiting for the results.

  The threat of AIDS has become somewhat less terrifying in the years since the drug cocktail was invented, and being HIV-positive is not such an immediate death sentence. But even though AIDS doesn’t get the press it used to, it’s still out there. The rate of HIV infection among gay men increased between 2008 and 2010, with the largest increase (22%) among the youngest in GenMe (ages 13 to 24). In the United States in 2007, 11,295 people died of HIV. Many Boomer gay men, who came of age in the 1980s when AIDS first entered the scene, are frustrated to see young gay men with a complacent or even cavalier attitude about getting HIV. Unfortunately, they may be right: 20% more gay men had unprotected sex in 2011 compared to 2005.

  On the other hand, GenMe has turned around the statistics on teen pregnancy. Births to teens aged 15 to 19 hit a record low in 2011, with the rate cut fully in half since 1990. The pregnancy rate (which includes abortion and miscarriages as well as births) has declined 42% since 1990. Fifty-nine percent fewer teens had an abortion in 2008 compared to 1988.

  Clearly, more teens are using birth control responsibly. These two might even go together: teenagers who assume they will soon have sex might be more likely to carry condoms or go on the pill. Their permissive attitudes may make them more prepared for the reality of their sexual activity.

  I’M SINGLE

  During the late 2000s, 48% of women ages 15 to 44 were living with someone while unmarried, up from 35% in 1995. Of those, 40% got married, 32% were still cohabitating after three years, and 27% broke up. In a 2001 poll, 62% of young people said that living together is the best way to predict if a relationship will last, and 43% say they wouldn’t marry someone unless they had lived with him or her first.

  Being single is not what it used to be. Someone who is technically “single” (as in not married) may have been in a live-in relationship for many years. Although most middle-class couples still get married eventually, it is seen as a later step in a process that begins with dating (or hooking up), moves on to seeing each other almost every night, and makes an intermediate stop at living together. Many people, especially the younger half of GenMe, have begun to use “single” to mean “not dating anyone.” Author Linda Perlstein saw a girl’s website that said, “Hi, I’m Adrienne. I am 11 and single.”

  Living together has radically changed the landscape of “single” people. Previous generations would have been shocked if couples lived together before marriage—and they are shocked when young people do so today. Tyler, 20, moved in with his girlfriend after they had dated for about six months. When his grandmother found out, she yelled at him, saying that she was “so disappointed.” Tyler’s sister Michelle, 22, also lives with her boyfriend; she describes her grandmother’s comments as “rude.” The authors of Midlife Crisis at 30 relate one of their mother’s comments about living together in her day: “My mother would have absolutely killed me. Actually, scratch that. I wouldn’t have ever thought about doing something so unrespectable. . . . It would have been like saying, ‘Hmmm, should I take that express shuttle to the moon?’ ”

  As of 2010, 77% of US married couples lived together first, up from 61% in 1995. Unmarried cohabitation also lasts longer now—an average of almost two years, compared to about a year in 1995.

  Brian, 23, said that living wi
th his girlfriend happened naturally. They had been spending a lot of time together, and he cleared some space for her things at his apartment. “Oh my gosh, I have a shelf!” she said. Before long, they were living together. Brian understands just how different his situation is from in previous generations. “My girlfriend’s grandmother would say, ‘If you give out the milk for free, nobody will buy the cow.’ Now, living together is a normal step in a relationship.”

  There are also large financial incentives to live together. Sharing the rent with someone—even if you need a bigger place—is a huge savings these days with rents and mortgages so high. And if you’re making a middle-class income, you’ll pay less tax to Uncle Sam if you stay single. This “marriage tax penalty,” once several thousand dollars on average, has been rolled back considerably in the last few years. However, people with taxable incomes of $73,200 or more in 2013 still paid more tax when married—thousands of dollars more if they were high income. Then there’s the cost of a wedding—the latest estimate puts the average at a whopping $28,487. In major cities such as New York, it’s over $50,000. Living together sounds pretty good when you think about it this way.

  ARE THESE CHANGES GOOD OR BAD?

  Well, that depends on whom you ask. Some young women believe their greater sexual freedom is an unmitigated good. This fits the trends discussed earlier in the book—if we’re going to have more freedoms, why not sexual freedom? “I definitely think our generation is lucky because we didn’t have the same constraints our parents did,” says Priya, 18. The authors of The Hookup Handbook dedicate their book to “every girl who lives life by her own rules—not The Rules.”

  When one of my students, then 23, wrote a paper on changes in sexuality, she did not describe younger people as more sexually active; instead, she wrote that they were “less sexually repressed.” Older people may think that the younger generation is disturbingly promiscuous, but the younger generation flings it right back—sure, we’re a little loose, but you’re just uptight. Sometimes neither characterization is complimentary. Lynda, 25, suggested the title for this chapter, and although it’s a great title, neither prude nor crude is flattering.

  In other words, how you perceive the generational trend depends on your generation. No matter what your opinion, it’s clear that individual freedom has once again won out against restrictive social rules. Don’t forget the condoms.

  7

  * * *

  The Equality Revolution: Minorities, Women, and Gays and Lesbians

  On March 7, 1965, five hundred people began to walk in Selma, Alabama. The crowd of protesters, black and white, planned to march to the state capital, Montgomery, to demand equal voting rights for black people.

  They made it only to a bridge on the outskirts of town. There, state troopers pelted them with tear gas and beat them with billy clubs so brutally that many were left bleeding or unconscious. Some of the troopers’ horses stepped on protesters and broke their ribs. The violence was so great that this became known as Bloody Sunday.

  Reflecting on the events forty years later, Congressman John Lewis noted that in 1965 all of the troopers were white men. When they re-created the Selma march in 2005, however, he said, “The group of troopers were men and women, white, black, and Hispanic. And when we reached the bridge, they cheered.”

  Lewis’s comment is striking for a number of reasons. First, the principles of the civil rights movement have been fully accepted by most Americans—they are ideas to be cheered and celebrated rather than beaten out of people. Not only that, but state troopers are now every race and both male and female. So are engineers, lawyers, doctors, and many other professions that were once almost exclusively white and male—such as president of the United States. The same country that had to pass a law in 1964 to make sure blacks could vote elected a black president just 44 years later—and then did it again in 2012.

  In just a few decades, the United States underwent a transformation of attitudes about women, minorities, and gays and lesbians. The revolution of equality was, without question, the largest social change in America in the last half of the 20th century. No other trend has had such a colossal impact on every aspect of our lives. We might debate the particulars of affirmative action, same-sex marriage, and sex differences in intellectual ability, but even conservatives now accept the general principle that race, gender, and sexual orientation should not preclude people from pursuing the profession they desire.

  It is difficult to overestimate the enormity of this change, and the relatively short amount of time it took. Segregation was still rampant in the 1960s, and Hispanics were still referred to as Spanish. In 1970, just 5% of graduating law students were women. By 2009 it was 46%, a ninefold increase. In the 1970s, police still raided gay bars and arrested people, and no one on TV was gay—not even Liberace, and especially not the dad on The Brady Bunch. When the first edition of this book was published in 2006, gays and lesbians could not openly serve in the US military, and same-sex marriage was outlawed at the federal level. Now neither is true.

  This is one of the last chapters in the book precisely because these changes are so pervasive and strong. These are not the trends that surprise people. Yet you may not realize just how much things have changed until you consider the details. We take so many things for granted now that it is easy to forget what things used to be like, especially if you are a GenMe’er and never saw it with your own eyes. GenX and especially GenMe have been taught equality since we were babies, if not by our parents, then by TV. This tolerance goes hand in hand with the decline in social rules in chapter 1; GenMe may have left behind some of the good social rules about politeness, but following in the footsteps of the Boomers, they also left behind some of the bad social rules about everyone’s living life in the same way, minorities and women staying in their “place,” and gays and lesbians facing systematic discrimination. GenMe’ers are less likely to believe in moral absolutes and are thus tolerant and accepting of diversity in all its forms.

  This is the good-news portion of the book. Most people would agree that equality is the upside of the focus on the self. In valuing the individual, our society looks beyond race, sex, and sexual orientation to the talents of each person. In practice, it doesn’t always happen—the most powerful among us are still white men—but a staggering amount of progress has been made. Whether it reflects reality or not, the American ideal in the 21st century is for each person to realize his or her potential. We no longer believe, as many people once did, that people of color should limit themselves to menial jobs or that a college education is wasted on a woman (because she will “just” have children and stay home).

  These changes in beliefs have been accompanied by large changes in behavior, life paths, and personalities. GenMe lives these differences every day. And that goes for white men too. Compared to your father or grandfather, you’re much more likely to have a female boss, a friend of another race, or a wife who works outside the home. And even if you don’t, you will see those things all around you.

  CHANGES FOR MINORITIES

  As the example of the Selma march illustrates, race relations in the United States have undergone a sea change. Racism and even segregation still exist, but they are not the systematic, institutionalized practice they once were. Monique, 21 and African American, notes that her grandmother went to segregated schools and wasn’t even allowed to play with white children. Although Monique says she has seen racism in her life, her grandmother’s experiences “seem like another world. I cannot even imagine having to deal with the issues she dealt with.” Overtly reported racial prejudice has become so rare that researchers now use indirect methods to measure it.

  Being a minority in the United States today is much different from forty or fifty years ago. There is a growing minority middle class. In 1970, most blacks did not even have a high school diploma; now 90% do, and almost four times as many blacks are college educated. The percentage of college degrees awarded to Hispanics has almost tripled sin
ce 1980. These trends are likely to continue as college-educated minorities have their own children and pass on their ambitions and success.

  These changes are all around us in popular media, from the black newscaster to the Mexican American actress. Like other trends, these changes were mostly in place by the time GenX and especially GenMe came along. From The Jeffersons (“Baby, movin’ on up . . .”) to The Cosby Show to ER to Grey’s Anatomy to Glee, GenMe is accustomed to seeing diversity on TV. Today, lawyers, judges, and doctors on TV are just about every ethnicity. We do not find this unusual; most of us fail to notice it or comment on it.

  Of course, racism still exists. Charles, 27, interviewed in Emerging Adulthood, recalls being called the n-word while at sports camp as a kid, and as a teenager, he got pulled over for “driving while black.” Black and Hispanic job applicants still face an uphill battle against stereotyping and discrimination, and an enormous racial discrepancy remains in income and education. Sixty-one percent of black and 36% of Hispanic young adults say that it has been difficult for them to get the financial support they need to get a college education; in contrast, only 4% of whites and zero Asian Americans say it has been difficult. This is simple math, as black and Hispanic young people are more likely to come from lower-income families. There may be a burgeoning black middle class, but untold masses of minorities still live on next to nothing.

  Most people admit to engaging in at least some racial stereotyping. The musical Avenue Q even has a matter-of-fact song about it: “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist” (“Ethnic jokes might be uncouth / But you laugh because they’re based on truth”). Black comedian Dave Chappelle was equally straightforward—and hilarious—about race on his sketch show, which was wildly popular among college students in the mid-2000s. In one sketch, he hosted a mock game show called I Know Black People, with questions about the meaning of the term badonkadonk (hint: the same as “junk in her trunk”) and why black people like menthol cigarettes (to which a white contestant admits, “I don’t know,” and Dave replies, “That is correct. Nobody knows”). Amid the goofiness is social commentary as well. When Dave asks how black people can “rise up and overcome,” a white contestant says, “By getting out there and voting.” Dave deadpans, “That is incorrect.”