iGen
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As generations raised on positive self-views and lots of positive feedback, Millennial and iGen teens are happier than GenX teens were in the early 1990s. Individualism has brought freedom and positive feelings to young people. As the main text explains, iGen’ers’ happiness has begun to falter, but it’s still higher than that of the unhappy grunge-listening GenX’ers wearing black in 1992.
But there’s a worm in this bright, shiny apple of youth happiness of late: What happens when teens get older and find out that their big dreams won’t be fulfilled? That reality check often happens after age 30, during the mature adult years when people settle into career paths. If they hit the wall of a reality check, their happiness might suffer. Sure enough, mature adults’ happiness has faded—especially in the years since 2000. Whereas mature adults were once significantly happier than young adults, by the 2010s, maturity no longer conferred a happiness advantage (see the top part of Figure E.7—the converging lines show how age no longer confers as much of a benefit for happiness).
Figure E.7. Happiness by age group, yearly averages (symbols) and linear trends (lines), Monitoring the Future and General Social Survey, 1972–2016.
Why did this happen? Individualism—more focus on the self and less on others—is a different experience when you’re in your twenties than when you’re in your thirties or older. The optimism and freedom of individualism feel great when you’re young, but those same characteristics can be unwelcome in mature adulthood, when people instead need a close community to help them raise children and build safe neighborhoods. Endless self-positivity feels great when you’re 16 but hollow when you’re 45. In past generations, the bubble of inflated expectations was not as big, so when it burst it didn’t have as much of an impact. In the last few decades, the expectations bubble was bigger, so when it burst, unhappiness followed. We can even show that with data: if you go year by year and match 12th graders’ expectations for their education with mature adults’ happiness twelve years later (when those 18-year-olds are turning 30), the two correlate –.68 (–1 is the maximum). That means that graduating classes with high expectations were significantly more likely to be unhappy twelve years later. This type of analysis can’t show that high expectations cause unhappiness, but it does show that one predicts the other.
Happiness is sometimes defined as reality divided by expectations. One study, for example, found that the amount of a monetary payoff after a game didn’t matter for players’ happiness; what mattered was whether the dollar amount was more or less than the study instructions had led them to expect. As one adult put it in an online forum, “The popular belief that you can become whoever you want to be is the problem. . . . A lot of people are feeling the implications of a life built on fantasy.” Overall, the modern American system of more focus on the self and less on others benefits youths with more choices and more freedoms but harms adults with unmet dreams and absent support systems. As Janis Joplin sang, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”
Positive Self-Views and Narcissism: iGen’s Reality Check
The trends in happiness suggest that GenX’ers and Millennials didn’t experience a serious reality check until they hit 30. For iGen’ers, it might be arriving earlier.
Although iGen college students are still just as convinced that they are above average, iGen high school students have begun to doubt themselves more; the rise in positive self-views over the course of the Millennial generation has been wiped out. iGen’ers are still more likely to believe they are above average than GenX’ers and Boomers did, but the bubble may have burst (see Figure E.9).
Figure E.9. Percentage of 12th graders who believe they are above average in intelligence and school ability. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
iGen’ers have also arrested a long-standing trend in self-esteem. Millennials, built up by a culture that told them, “You’re special just for being you,” were confident that they liked themselves—though, with little solid basis for their self-esteem, they doubted their self-competence more than GenX’ers did. iGen’ers, though, are lower in both self-competence and self-liking; both slid precipitiously after 2012 (see Figure E.10).
Figure E.10. 12th graders’ self-competence and self-liking (subscales of self-esteem). Monitoring the Future, 1989–2015.
The Millennials’ self-confidence has been replaced by iGen’ers’ more uncertain view of themselves. Once again, iGen shows a sudden change in trends that had been going in the same direction for decades. That might be due to iGen’ers experiencing the Great Recession during their formative years; that was certainly a reality check. However, the drop in self-views happened well after the recession was over. Instead, the brutal world of social media and the Internet might be the pin that burst the bubble of youth self-confidence. That might not be a bad thing; self-views had become so inflated for Millennials that many managers complained about their overconfidence and sense of entitlement. If iGen’ers bring those views back to earth, they might be better equipped to handle the challenges of college and the workplace.
Speaking of which: Millennials have a reputation for narcissism—an inflated sense of self characterized by a sense of entitlement, vanity, attention seeking, lack of empathy, and overconfidence. That reputation is, at least in part, my doing. In February 2007, I presented a study showing that college students were more narcissistic than they used to be—a finding that garnered widespread press attention. Narcissism was measured by the standard measure in the field, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, or NPI. Our study compared the average scores of about 15,000 college students between 1982 and 2006. Thus the results weren’t due to being young—everyone was about the same age—and they weren’t due to older people’s complaints, as we relied on what students said about themselves. Other studies finding increases in narcissism in various samples (on college campuses from Alabama to Kentucky to California, in countries as far away as Korea, and in a screening study for narcissistic personality disorder) followed. So did other studies finding trends in traits related to narcissism (decreases in empathy, increases in materialism, decreases in concern for others, and increases in thinking that one is above average, featured above). My friend and colleague W. Keith Campbell, an expert on narcissistic personality traits, joined me in writing a book documenting these trends and their consequences: the increase in plastic surgery, the growth of credit, growing interest in uniqueness, issues in relationships. We called the book The Narcissism Epidemic, as an epidemic is defined as widespread prevalence, and because the rise had both causes and symptoms. Even though most narcissism is at the level of a personality trait, not a disorder, the disease model still fit. By the time Time magazine did a cover story on Millennials in 2013, the headline was “The Me Me Me Generation.”
Almost ten years later, we decided to take another look at the data on college student narcissism. In 2009, we’d written in The Narcissism Epidemic that the growth of easy credit and booming economic times might have been one possible cause of the rise in narcissism and thus that economic downturns might burst the bubble. Several studies since then had found that difficult economic circumstances had led to lower narcissism—both by age/generation and among individuals from challenging economic backgrounds. That made us wonder what had happened to narcissism scores during and after the Great Recession, the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. We expected at least a plateau in narcissism scores but found instead a surprise: a complete reversal of the previous increase.
The recession took all the steam out of college students’ narcissism; suddenly they realized they weren’t actually so great. It will be interesting to see what happens with narcissism in the coming years as the economy recovers. Narcissism might come back, or—given iGen’ers trend toward doubting themselves—it might level off or even continue to go down. For now, it appears that narcissism peaked with the Millennials in college right before the Great Recession, who were born in the early to mid-1980s. After that, narcis
sism was on a downslope—all the way back to the levels of the Boomers. So although iGen’ers have retained many of the characteristics of people raised in a highly individualistic culture, higher narcissism is apparently not one of them.
Figure E.11. College students’ Narcissistic Personality Inventory scores, 1982–2013, based on Twenge, Konrath, Foster, & Campbell (2017).
Appendix F
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Chapter 4 Extra Stuff
Girls bear the brunt of the increase in loneliness; for example, the increase in the number who feel left out is much more steep for girls.
Figure F.1. Percentage of 10th graders who mostly agree or agree “I often feel left out of things,” by sex. Monitoring the Future, 1991–2015.
Depression: More Evidence
Depression isn’t always obvious; it often appears as related physical and mental symptoms, such as trouble sleeping and trouble remembering. iGen’ers have continued the trend started by Millennials toward increases in these psychosomatic, less direct symptoms of depression. The trends in these more subtle symptoms are steadier rather than sudden, with more gradual increases in symptoms as Millennials transition to iGen’ers (see Figure F.2).
Figure F.2. Times per month 12th graders experience psychosomatic symptoms of depression. Monitoring the Future, 1982–2015.
Millennials experienced these symptoms of depression even as they showed little change in more direct symptoms, such as not enjoying life or feeling hopeless. The advent of iGen, on the other hand, produced an abrupt upswing in direct symptoms (see Figure F.3, which is the total of all six items on a continuous 1–5 scale and thus more comprehensive than the graphs in the main text).
Figure F.3. Depressive symptoms among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. Monitoring the Future, 1989–2015.
In the American Freshman survey, students agreeing they “felt depressed” was highest in the late 1980s, declined, and then rose once iGen stepped on to campuses after 2012 (see Figure 4.8 in the main text). It’s another piece of evidence suggesting that iGen’ers are faltering earlier and more completely than Millennials did: more are willing to agree with the straightforwardly honest statement that they felt depressed. Millennials said they were having trouble sleeping and remembering—signs of depression—but denied there was anything else wrong. In contrast, iGen’ers know they’re struggling, and they say so.
Among college students nationwide who sought help from the counseling center, anxiety was the most common concern (expressed by 57% of clients, according to therapists participating in the Center for Collegiate Mental Health survey). This was followed by stress, experienced by 47% of clients. Depression came in third, at 46%. Family issues, relationship problems, and academic performance all trailed at about 30%. When clinicians were asked to choose the primary concern of student clients, the most common by far was anxiety (20%), with depression a close second (16%).
For iGen’ers, virtually all of the available evidence points to more mental health issues: more high school students agree that they experience depressive symptoms such as hopelessness and feeling useless; more college students say they feel depressed and overwhelmed on the AF survey, and more say they feel anxious in the ACHA survey; more teens are suffering major depressive episodes; more say they have seriously considered or attempted suicide; the suicide rate is up. This is a very consistent picture.
Depression: Age, Race, Socioeconomic Status, Location, and Gender
The rise in depressive symptoms with iGen appears across all segments of society—for example, within socioeconomic status, location (urban, suburban, rural), and region (Northeast, Midwest, South, or West).
Figure F.4. Depressive symptoms, by socioeconomic status, 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. Monitoring the Future, 1991–2015.
Figure F.5. Depressive symptoms, by rural, suburban, or urban location, 12th graders. Monitoring the Future, 1991–2015.
Figure F.6. Depressive symptoms, by region, 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. Monitoring the Future, 1991–2015.
The NS-DUH screening survey shows depression rising across all age groups, racial/ethnic groups, and income levels. The rise in teen depression has touched every group.
Figure F.7. Percentage of 12- to 17-year-olds experiencing a major depressive episode in the last twelve months, by age group. National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, 2004–2015.
Figure F.8. Percentage of 12- to 17-year-olds experiencing a major depressive episode in the last twelve months, by race. National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, 2004–2015.
Figure F.9. Percentage of 12- to 17-year-olds experiencing a major depressive episode in the last twelve months, by income level. National Survey on Drug Abuse and Health, US Department of Health and Human Services, 2004–2014.
The YRBSS asks high school students about five major risk factors for committing suicide: feeling very sad and hopeless for two weeks, seriously considering committing suicide, making a plan to commit suicide, having attempted to commit suicide, and being injured in a suicide attempt. Boys have not changed much in these risk factors, but girls have. Feeling sad or hopeless reached all-time highs (since 1999) in 2015 for girls, as did planning suicide, attempting suicide, and being injured in a suicide attempt. After declining during the 2000s, these suicide risk factors began to rise again after 2009.
Figure F.9. Suicide risk factors, girls only, 9th-12th graders. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 1999–2015.
College students also show increases in self-injury and seriously considering suicide. Between 2011 and 2016, 30% more intentionally injured themselves, and 43% more seriously considered suicide.
Figure F.10. Percentage of undergraduate college students who seriously considered suicide or who intentionally injured themselves in the last twelve months, 2011–2016. American College Health Association survey of approximately 400,000 students on about 100 campuses.
Teens’ suicide rate has risen again.
Figure F.11. Suicide rate per 100,000 population, US adolescents, CDC Fatal Injury Reports, 1980–2015.
Losing Sleep
The recent trend toward inadequate sleep is stronger among girls than boys (see Figure F.12). That’s additional evidence that it might be caused by smartphones, since girls spend more time on smartphones than boys do. However, the trends in inadequate sleep look very similar across race, socioeconomic status, and region of the country.
Figure F.12. Percentage of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders who get less than seven hours of sleep most nights, by sex. Monitoring the Future, 1991–2015.
The negative effects of electronic devices on sleep begin to appear after two hours of use a day.
Figure F.13. Percentage of 9th to 12th graders who sleep six hours or less, by hours per day of electronic device use (exposure-response curve). Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 2007–2015.
Appendix G
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Chapter 6 Extra Stuff
American books became much more likely to use phrases related to safety during iGen’s lifetime, as seen in the Google Books American English corpus.
Figure G.1. Frequency of appearance of the phrases “keep safe” and “stay safe” in American books. Google Books database, 1970–2008.
Teens became much less likely to ride in a car without a seat belt or to ride with someone who was drinking.
Figure G.2. Percentage of 9th to 12th graders who never or rarely wear a seat belt and who ride with a driver who has been drinking. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System, 1991–2015.
Teens became less likely to get into a serious fight at school or work.
Figure G.3. Percentage of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders who have gotten into a serious fight at school or work in the last twelve months. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2014.
Deaths from car accidents declined, with the biggest declines among teens and young adults.
Figure G.4. Car accident death rates by age gr
oup. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1980–2014.
Appendix H
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Chapter 8 Extra Stuff
The decline in teen sex was especially large among black teens.
Figure H.1. Percentage of teens who have ever had sexual intercourse, by race, 1991–2015. Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System.
Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are down among teens—the only age group showing a decrease in recent years.
Figure H.2. Rate of sexually transmitted diseases per 100,000 population, by age group, 1996–2014. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, WONDER data search.
Contrary to popular conceptions of there being more dads involved in raising iGen, fewer grew up with a father or stepfather (see Figure H.3). However, when dads were there, studies show they now do more child care than they once did.
Figure H.3. Percentage of 12th graders who have less than two parents in the home. Monitoring the Future, 1976–2015.
Millenials have continued and even accelerated the trend toward getting married later (see Figure H.4), suggesting iGen will continue it as well.