iGen

Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy--and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood--and What That Means for the Rest of Us

De: Jean M. Twenge PhD PhD

Narrado por: Madeleine Maby

“We’ve all been desperate to learn what heavy use of social media does to adolescents. Now, thanks to Twenge’s careful analysis, we know: It is making them lonely, anxious, and fragile—especially our girls. If you are a parent, teacher, or employer, you must read this fascinating book.”—Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation

Born after 1995, the smartphone generation grew up with cell phones, had an Instagram page before high school, and cannot remember a time before the Internet. They are iGen, and this essential book reveals how these teens and young adults differ from millennials and every other generation in their mental health, social behaviors, and attitudes toward politics and religion.

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 up to the mid-2000s, 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 contributing to their 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, 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.

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.

*As seen in Time, USA TODAY, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and on CBS This Morning, BBC, PBS, CNN, and NPR*

Essential information on the next generation

iGens are not like millennials. Screen time, isolation, anxiety and virtual relationships are huge factors in their lives. They need encouragement, live experiences, more time to mature. This book gives insight to how they think.

Eye opening

Being the mother of 3 daughters ranging from 6 to 14, this book was eye opening and disheartening at times. The author shares a lot of interesting stats of today’s generation versus previous generations. While you may be thinking this generation is doomed, she finally offers some helpful advice and tips to help this generation thrive and become amazing productive, caring and responsible adults.

Eye opening

It's a brave new world for kids. This book provides an enlightening perspective of how unique iGen is due to the technological environment they are growing on.

Excellent information

Interesting and informative. Read slowly but Speeding it up was great! Give insight into the effect iGen will have on all of us.

Great, but problematic ...

I loved the book. Her and others’ research describe the shift from the me generation to the iGen generation with massive use of smartphones and dependency on parents. I would especially recommend this book for college profs. That said, the audiobook version lacks the pdf file with dozen of graphs. Without the pdf file, it is hard to visualize the author’s points.