IGEN BOOK Summary - Zusammenfassung iGen - iGen PDF

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Latest book of Dr. Jean Twenge (psychologist specializing in generational differences)  is iGen -

Millennials (= Gen-Y)

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Gen-Z (= iGen): born between the mid-1990s – 2012

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1995: birth of the World Wide Web

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new Generation A

The “i” in iGen stands for: 7 evidence-based insights about this generation 1. Inclusive: Gen-Z  growing up in a world called VUCA (volatile, uncertain, changing, ambiguous)  no certainties & no absolutes; everything is fluid.  Gen-Z identity is fluid, and change and diversity are championed. The majority of GenZ does not identify as exclusively heterosexual (48% exclusively heterosexual)  Facebook offers 58 different genders. Demographics are fluid too  white Caucasians are a minority in the US among young Gen-Z’ers (25% are Hispanic, 5% multi-racial)

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Super-Connected: The world of Gen-Z has been shaped by mobile digital technology. If ‘Millennials’ were the connected generation  Gen-Z is hyper-connected. GenZ  first generation of genuine digital natives. 96% of Gen-Z owns a smartphone  Gen-Z spends 2h of instant chat, 2h streaming and surfing, 1.5h on social media, and 1.5h playing games on smartphones and consoles.

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In Person No More: I’m with You, but Only Virtually  Gen-Z live their lives online and also live their relationships online. Many have friends online who they have never met in real life.  Gen-Z is more insular, spending more time home-alone. This is the FOGO generation (fear of going out)  Gen-Z feels increasingly lonely and isolated.

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In No Hurry: Growing Up Slowly  Gen-Z engages in the world cautiously, even reluctantly. Compared to Millennials (had accelerated childhoods, enthusiastically engaging in ‘adulting’), Gen-Z is in no rush to embrace adulthood. Gen-Z is less likely to go out without their parents, date, have sex, drive or drink.

5. Insecure: The New Mental Health Crisis  Gen-Z = Homeland Generation. ‘Helicopter parenting’ from worried parents is quite common. In the childhood of Gen-Z  patterned by the greatest financial crisis and recession in living memory. Gen-Z is more anxious, stressed, and even depressed than Millennials. 6.3 million teens have an anxiety disorder that impedes their daily function (30% of girls & 20% of boys)  suicide rate went up 6.

Safety-First: World is perceived as uncertain and unsafe  Gen-Z is always searching for safe spaces (physical safety, emotional safety, nutritional safety)

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Neo-dystopians: Gen-Z  independent & realistic about a challenging world. Gen-Z refuses to conform to stereotypes, convention, authority  they rather embrace diversity, freedom and are skeptical of big government and big business. Gen-Z is less likely to support big government or government regulation (whether on matters of abortion, marijuana, gun control, environmental regulation). For Gen-Z, there’s no immutable right or wrong to legislate for or against, it’s up to the individual.

The BG Take Twenge’s analysis: use of compelling large-scale age-matched generational data comparing Gen-Z now to previous generations when they were the age that Gen-Z is now  this allows for a genuine comparison and removes general traits associated with youth (e.g. easy adoption of new technology, wanting to change the

world). Twenge’s data also allows for some debunking of some Gen-Z myths.  Gen-Z are not more entrepreneurial than Millennials (in fact they work less, and are less likely to want to own their own business). Nor are they more religious (in fact they affiliate less with religion, attend fewer religious services).

Smartphones not only define the latest American birth cohort, according to the headline, they have also “destroyed a generation.” Twenge blames our pocket glass for wrecking sleep, socialization, courtship, sex, and young people’s mental health — pretty much everything good about being a teen. Since the late ’90s, Twenge has authored and co-authored many dozens of scholarly papers comparing the attitudes and beliefs of young people from different birth cohorts. 2006: book Generation Me, which gave social-scientific support to millennial-bashing. 2010: The Narcissism Epidemic. Now, millennials are passé. Her new book is about Americans born in or after 1995, or as the author insists on calling them, “iGen.” The book’s full title is 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. , Twenge posits a two-part test: it has to be negatively correlated with mental health, and it has to have changed in the same time and direction as happiness. But that still only describes a correlation between two variables; screen time and iGen unhappiness could both be caused by the movement of a third, unacknowledged variable. Because Twenge is looking for answers in a set of longitudinal surveys about teen behavior and attitudes, at best she can only find a proximate cause. Would it be more or less enlightening to say that the rise in the combined market cap of the four so-called GAFA firms (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon) makes iGen unhappy? It would be no less true than saying “screen time.” 1. Slow: They are growing up slower than before, not faster With the internet, you might think young people today leave childhood sooner than before. But compared with their parents, iGen are less likely to go out without their

parents, go on a date, have sex or get pregnant. They get married, learn to drive, get their first job and leave home later than their forebears. Twenge calls this a “slow-life strategy” – parents keep a closer watch for longer, and children are in no hurry to take on responsibility. 2. Screens: Yes, they do spend a lot of time on their phones On average, teenagers spend 2¼ hours a day texting, 2 hours on the internet, 1½ hours on electronic gaming, and half an hour on video chat. That’s a quarter of their life on their phones and computers. This generation are shaped by social media— the distraction, the constant sense of being rated, the clear signals of who is in and who is out. iGen see their friends in person an hour less a day than Gen X or Millennials did. They also read fewer books, newspapers and magazines, and get less sleep. 3. Sad: Their mental health is suffering Starting in 2010 (when smartphones arrived), there has been a downturn in the number of teens reporting that they are happy. Between 2010 and 2015, loneliness increased by 25%, and depressive symptoms among girls rose by 50%. Worse mental health correlates with more screen time (any more than 2 hours a day) and with less sleep, exercise or in-person interaction. 4. Secular: They’re less religious and less spiritual More iGeners are being raised in non-religious households, and more iGen teens have decided not to belong to a religion any more (this is less pronounced in households that are black or college-educated). Secularisation in the USA is finally catching up with Europe. In private they are also less likely to believe in God, the Bible or an afterlife. Among 18-24 year olds, most believe that Christianity is antigay (64%), judgmental (62%), and hypocritical (58%). At the same time fewer describe themselves as spiritual—that’s not where they look for answers or fulfillment. 5. Safe: They’re more safe, but also more fearful iGen value both physical and emotional safety. Compared with previous generations, they are safer drivers, get drunk and take drugs less, and get into fewer fights. Despite recent publicity, even long-term trends in sexual assault are

improving. Yet surveys show most feel the world is less safe than it used to be. Expect the arguments over safe spaces and microaggressions to move from the campus to the workplace as iGen become adults: social justice and free speech beliefs are unrelated among those over 40, but those under 40 who support social justice are less supportive of free speech. 6. Self-focused: They’re more individualistic, but not so narcissistic Individualistic people don’t need anyone else in order to be happy: sex, marriage and childbirth are happening less and later for iGen, while porn use increases. In an uncertain and competitive world, they feel they need to focus more on job and career just to survive. Their individualistic values lead them to value equality and inclusivity: in 1990 15% of young adults supported same-sex marriage; in 2016 75% did. They are less likely to join a church, political party or community group. How can we best love the iGeners in our homes, classrooms and churches? Though the above features are common amongst this generation, we mustn’t stereotype them, assuming that every young person we meet fits the generalized trends. Twenge suggests that iGen’s biggest challenge will be fear. This is what she writes in the last chapter of her book: “In the three years I spent working on this book… I’ve realized this: iGeners are scared, maybe even terrified. Growing up slowly, raised to value safety, and frightened by the implications of income inequality, they have come to adolescence in a time when their primary social activity is staring at a small rectangular screen that can like them or reject them… If they can shake themselves free of the constant clutch of their phones and shrug off the heavy cloak of their fear, they can still fly. And the rest of us will be there, cheering them on.” It’s not easy to shrug off fear by yourself, but Jesus is brilliant at freeing us from our fears so we can love difficult people and take on difficult challenges. That’s why I wrote my book, Escaping Escapism – to share what Jesus has taught me about how to be committed and courageous in today’s world. Because this generation need to hear the words that the Lord speaks more than any others in the Bible: “Do not be afraid.”

VUCA: volatile, uncertain, changing, ambiguous FOGO: fear of going out GAFA: Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon...