iGen

By: Jean M. Twenge Ph.D.

Narrated by: Madeleine Maby

Length: 9 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's Summary

An entertaining first look at how today's members of iGen - the children, teens, and young adults born in the mid-1990s and later - are vastly different from their millennial predecessors and from any other generation, from the renowned psychologist and author of Generation Me.

With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today's rising generation of teens and young adults. Born in the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s and later, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person - perhaps why they are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct from every generation before them; they are also different in how they spend their time, in how they behave, and in their attitudes toward religion, sexuality, and politics. They socialize in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos, and want different things from their lives and careers. More than previous generations, they are obsessed with safety, focused on tolerance, and have no patience for inequality. iGen is also growing up more slowly than previous generations: 18-year-olds look and act like 15-year-olds used to.

As this new group of young people grows into adulthood, we all need to understand them: Friends and family need to look out for them; businesses must figure out how to recruit them and sell to them; colleges and universities must know how to educate and guide them. And members of iGen also need to understand themselves as they communicate with their elders and explain their views to their older peers. Because where iGen goes, so goes our nation - and the world.

©2017 Jean M. Twenge (P)2017 Simon & Schuster Audio

Really, Amazon, no PDF?

This is a fascinating topic, written by a great scholar in the subject matter. Unfortunately, the narrator frequently refers to graphs and studies that are presumably shown and/or are sourced in footnotes. Unlike with other Audible titles, there does not appear to be a companion pdf for this book.

17 of 17 people found this review helpful

Interesting study of today's youth

First, Madeleine Maby's performance was perfect. So many readers mispronounce or make incorrect inflections. She is also pleasant to listen to, with just the right pacing.

Ms. Twenge both intrigues and frightens with this in depth study. Having both Millennial and iGen children I have noticed to contrast in thinking, confidence, and work ethic.

A recurring word throughout is "safety". I've raised my kids to understand the world is not a safe place, it never has been and never will be, so learn to deal with that. Yet they still fear the future and lack confidence; just as pointed out in this book.

The abundance of statistics was impressive, however I think the publisher fails us in not providing a companion PDF file. I would have liked to see the numbers and graphs the author refers to.

I went into this book curious and with an open mind. As I progressed I noticed one of the main premises seems incorrect. Twenge even included this in the book's subtitle. She contends that iGen is more tolerant, yet spent a great deal of time demonstrating their complete lack of tolerance.

Tolerance is the acceptance of ideas and constructs that conflict with your own. What Twenge calls tolerance is really acceptance of compatible or already accepted behaviours. iGen accepts only ideas that they believe in. Ideas that contradict their own are considered "harmful" and not only go unheard, but they demand zero-tolerance and punishment. Severe punishment in fact. How does this differ from a northerner in 1840 accepting slavery as an alternative lifestyle?

I love that iGen is hard working, not arrogant, and libertarian. However, it scares the hell out of me that they don't believe in the 1st Amendment and believe even accidentally or unintentional offenses should be punishable by termination or worse. When these people come into political power such intolerance could have radical and negative ramifications. We could be staring down at the end of freedom in exchange for safety and conformity.

Using Twenge's reasoning every generation is tolerant since we all tolerate ideas and actions that confirm to our own standards. Accepting homosexuality is tolerant only if you believe it is wrong. I was raised to be tolerant, allowing others to have opposing ideas, listen to them, and consider the merits. I don't see any evidence of this mindset in a safe-zone generation.

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Irreplaceably insightful

Milestone glimpse into the rising generation focused on safety and doing well while growing up slowly.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great Information...but

Great Information but difficult to process via audio book. May want to follow up with hard copy.

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

Don't buy your kid a smartphone...

.... until you read this book! Such important information far exceeding just that aspect. I have 3 daughters under age 11 and this was so thought provoking!

3 of 4 people found this review helpful

A Wake Up Call

Fascinating data that makes me sad for our nation and our youth. It provides great insight into what has changed and is going to continue to change. This should be mandatory reading for all parents of igen'ers and employers.

Insightful

Can't wait to see what this generation does, as a late boomer I look forward to what my 13 year old can accomplish. "Individualism will save us all."

Interesting read

nice compilation of statistics; relatively objective tone; taking trends with a grain of salt because people like to defy categorization

We shall see

Twenge is a bit full of herself, and some of the examples she chooses may be to get an emotional response, but this book has affected how I interpret my kids and their friends. It may be confirmation bias, but some of her observations could be right.
Stop being a helicopter parent, and allow my child to grow. Give them opportunities to fail and to interact with real people. Have loads of kids over to the house, even if they tear it up.
One hour is OK, 3 hours is BAD.
Snap chat+facebook = FOMO+depression

0 of 1 people found this review helpful

Generation SnowFLAKE!

What would have made iGen better?

A more scientific approach to thought and theory; and a better understanding of what the word GENERATION actually means.

Who was your favorite character and why?

There were no 'characters' in this publication.

What about Madeleine Maby’s performance did you like?

I thought her work was outstanding.

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Fear for the future of the United States of America and every other culture on Earth that embraces Social Media without understanding, and without enacting safeguards and realistic controls.

Any additional comments?

Dr. Jean Twenge’s remarkable new book, “iGen” is well written, presented in an understandable manner and incredibly revealing for people of the age of majority (which used to be 20, but now is more like 25 and slowly creeping up to 30!).

The first thing I noticed about this book was how incredibly myopic the author was. It was more than 20 minutes into the audio book when she finally revealed that, when SHE was talking about ‘America’, what she really meant was the United States OF America. [After all, everyone in the world except the Yanks know there are more than 40 countries in “America”, from Ellesmere Island all way down to the Tierra del Fuego! This is understandable, since a vast majority of the citizens of the USA know virtually nothing about history or geography. I suggest they research a Florentine by the name of Amerigo Vespucci.] This means that Twenge was not talking about generations that populate this planet, but only the 5% of them that occupy her home country. Consequently, there is a greater than 90% chance her book does not apply to you or your family or your children.

This makes her book far less valuable, in my view, than what I thought when I purchased it from Audible.com -- After all, the Baby Boom was a worldwide phenomenon. It was certainly NOT contained within the borders of the USA alone. The United Kingdom, Canada, Europe, Australia, Japan and dozens more all experienced the Baby Boom phenomenon.

Secondly, it quickly became apparent that her use of the word “generation” is markedly different than the common usage of the word. For 900 years, this word meant the time it took for one generation to replace itself with their progeny. After all, it comes from the Latin stem word ‘generātiō’, “to bring into existence; cause to be; produce; to create by a vital or natural process”. For a very long time, that time period was set at 20 years. For example, the first of the Baby Boomers were conceived in 1945-6 and reached the age of maturity 20 years later in 1965-6. But what Dr. Twenge has done is cut up “generations” into blocks of 14 years to better suit her goal: Which is to communicate to the general public her ideas of the effects of modern communications technology on “Americans”. THAT is not acceptable, at least for those of us in the scientific community.

Rather than bend to the will of the cultural no-nothings, would it not be better to call the post-Baby-Boom generation The Post-Baby-Boom Generation? And since Dr. Twenge herself states that Post-Baby-Boomers tended to marry and reproduce closer to the age of 25, does it not make sense to date their generation from the beginning of 1966 through to the end of 1990?

As for the generation that followed the Post-Baby-Boomers, you will have to pick a name for yourself; but after reading the book, I think you may subscribe to my nomenclature, “Generation SnowFLAKE”, with a strong emphasis on the second syllable, a slang term for SCREWBALL. Because of the retarded development of these young people, Generation RETARD would also be an apt description, but would no doubt be outlawed by the “PC Police”.

TRIGGER WARNING!! Generation Snowflake denotes how the parents of these incredibly selfish and self-centred brats treat them as living gods. For example, QUARTZ ran this article: ”How America’s collective baby worship sets mothers up to fail” and http://kidobsessedamerica.com has a headline, “My kid is superior to Baby Jesus”.

But as I said, you will have to pick a generational name for yourself. [Generation Amoral & Mentally Disordered = GenAMD? Or perhaps Generation MAD (Mental, Amoral & Deranged)? Generation SAMD (Self-obsessed, Amoral, & Mentally Disordered)? How about Generation Emotionally Unstable?] Just don’t forget to include a TRIGGER WARNING for the fragile little lamebrains!

I think any of these choices are FAR more accurate than Dr. Twenge’s name {iGen} for these morons who can’t read, can’t write, don’t know what punctuation is, can’t get through a job interview without crying to their mommy and can’t figure out how to do anything on their own without looking it up on their phone first! They probably think that a Multiplication Table is where you sit to do math!

Think about it: How many times have you heard these idiots say, “Xspecially” or “Xcape”; or “She AXED me...” or habitually use the word ‘Like’ 15 Times in less than two minutes!

Generation Snowflake is reproducing itself even slower than the Post-Baby-Boomers. According to Dr. Twenge, they may not succeed in this endeavour for 30 years. This means the current generation, which started at the beginning of 1991 will not fully replace itself until 2020.

Forget the inaccurate cultural labels (Gen-X, Y, Z, Millennials or iGen) Dr. Twenge. Adopt the more sensible Post-Baby-Boomer generation and Generation Snowflake. It makes more sense biologically, as well as grammatically.

At the end of chapter 6 (in the audiobook, chapter 5 in the paper book), Dr. Twenge actually goes so far as to predict the future of religion in the United States of America!!! Now THAT is ballzy, especially for those of you who believe in a real God who created the universe and everything in it, including us.

Here’s another thing that baffles me as a scientist: Do YOU think it is acceptable for authors of scientific books or papers to take sides in the Culture Wars? Because I certainly don’t! Yet, near the end of her book, Dr. Twenge made it crystal clear she thinks homosexuality and transgenderism are perfectly normal. Science however clearly indicates these deviant behaviours to be “disorders of ‘assumption’”.

Eminent Johns Hopkins scientist Dr. Paul McHugh likens this mental disorder to a “dangerously thin” person suffering from anorexia who looks in the mirror and thinks they are “overweight.” McHugh’s diagnosis is backed up by hundreds of peer reviewed medical reports and publications spanning decades!

Stick to the science Dr. Twenge! Don’t fall into the trap of believing that cultural “truths” are anything but hokum! They may help you sell books and make you popular in the current “American” environment, but they are NOT scientific facts; they are only public opinion.

0 of 1 people found this review helpful