Jean M. Twenge > Quotes

“Every time I went to the library, it felt like a treasure hunt: somewhere amid those dusty books was the answer, and all I had to do was find it.”
― Jean M. Twenge, Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before

“The purpose of school is for children to learn, not for them to feel good about themselves all the time.”
― Jean M. Twenge, Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before

“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
― Jean M Twenge, Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--And More Miserable Than Ever Before

“Kids need to learn that you need to feel bad sometimes. We learn through experience, and we learn especially through bad experiences.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Yet GenX'er teens didn't slow down--they were just as likely to drive, drink alcohol, and date as their Boomer peers and more likely to have sex and get pregnant as teens. But then they waited longer to reach full adulthood with careers and children. So GenX'ers managed to lengthen adolescence beyond all previous limits: they started becoming adults earlier and finished becoming adults later.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Wanting to feel safe all of the time can also lead to wanting to protect against emotional upset—the concern with “emotional safety” somewhat unique to iGen. That can include preventing bad experiences, sidestepping situations that might be uncomfortable, and avoiding people with ideas different from your own. That’s where things get dicey—both for iGen and for the older generations struggling to understand them.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“All in all, in-person social interaction is much better for mental health than electronic communication.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Another study of adults found the same thing: the more people used Facebook, the lower their mental health and life satisfaction at the next assessment.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“iGen is on the verge of the most severe mental health crisis for young people in decades. On the surface, though, everything is fine.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Adolescence--the time when teens begin to do things adults do--now happens later. Thirteen-year-olds--and even 18-year-olds-- are less likely to act like adults and spend their time like adults. They are more likely, instead, to act like children--not by being immature, necessarily, but by postponing the usual activities of adults. Adolescence is now an extension of childhood rather than the beginning of adulthood.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Narcissists like watching themselves on videotape, and report gaining self-confidence from gazing at their reflection in a mirror. The Narcissistic Personality Inventory contains items such as “I like to look at myself in the mirror,” “I get upset when people don’t notice how I look when I go out in public,” and “I like to show off my body.” Vanity seems harmless and often is, but vanity often occurs with self-centeredness, which causes so many of the negative behaviors associated with narcissism.”
― Jean M. Twenge, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement

“Just be yourself” sounds like good advice at first, but what if you’re a jerk? What if you’re a serial killer? Maybe you should be someone else. “Believe in yourself” is fine, but “anything is possible”? No, it’s not. Expressing yourself, respecting yourself, and being honest with yourself are somewhat tautological but not usually directly harmful. But “you have to love yourself first” has a crucial flaw: people who really love themselves are called narcissists, and they make horrible relationship partners.”
― Jean M. Twenge, Generation Me - Revised and Updated: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before

“NAXALT” fallacy, for “Not All [X] Are Like That.” The NAXALT fallacy is the mistaken belief that because someone in the group lies at the extreme, the average does not exist.”
― Jean M. Twenge, Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future

“Nearly 40% of iGen high school seniors in 2016 had never tried alcohol at all, and the number of 8th graders who have tried alcohol has been cut nearly in half.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Fewer teens having sex is one of the reasons behind what many see as one of the most positive youth trends in recent years: the teen birthrate hit an all-time low in 2015, cut by more than half since its modern peak in the early 1990s.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“iGen’ers are more likely than any generation before them to be raised by religiously unaffiliated parents.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“No matter what the cause, the result is the same: iGen teens are less likely to experience the freedom of being out of the house without their parents--those first tantalizing tastes of the independence of being an adult, those times when teens make their own decisions, good or bad.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“iGen’ers’ drumbeats of growing up slowly, individualism, and safety all manifest themselves in their exceedingly cautious attitude toward relationships.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“only 28% of 12th graders in 2015 attended services once a week, down from 40% in 1976.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“iGen’ers are addicted to their phones, and they know it. Many also know it’s not entirely a good thing. It’s clear that most teens (and adults) would be better off if they spent less time with screens. “Social media is destroying our lives,” one teen told Nancy Jo Sales in her book American Girls. “So why don’t you go off it?” Sales asked. “Because then we would have no life,” the girl said.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Our lives are strikingly different from the lives of those in decades past, primarily due to the technology we rely on.”
― Jean M. Twenge, Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future

“We protect children from danger, real and imaginary, and are then surprised when they go to college and create safe spaces designed to repel the real world.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Many iGen’ers are so addicted to social media that they find it difficult to put down their phones and go to sleep when they should. “I stay up all night looking at my phone,” admits a 13-year-old from New Jersey in American Girls. She regularly hides under her covers at night, texting, so her mother doesn’t know she’s awake. She wakes up tired much of the time, but, she says, “I just drink a Red Bull.” Thirteen-year-old Athena told me the same thing: “Some of my friends don’t go to sleep until, like, two in the morning. “I assume just for summer?” I asked. “No, school, too,” she said. “And we have to get up at six forty-five.” Smartphone use may have decreased teens’ sleep time: more teens now sleep less than seven hours most nights (see Figure 4.12). Sleep experts say that teens should get about nine hours of sleep a night, so a teen who is getting less than seven hours a night is significantly sleep deprived. Fifty-seven percent more teens were sleep deprived in 2015 than in 1991. In just the three years between 2012 and 2015, 22% more teens failed to get seven hours of sleep.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“The embrace of safety and protection now extends to course readings, which must be sanitized to remove anything that might offend someone. In his piece “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me,” Edward Schlosser noted that many faculty members have changed their syllabi for fear of being fired if students complain about offensive material in the course readings. One adjunct professor, he noted, was let go when “students complained that he exposed them to ‘offensive’ texts written by Edward Said and Mark Twain. His response, that the texts were meant to be a little upsetting, only fueled the students’ ire and sealed his fate.” The focus, he says, is now on students’ emotional state rather than on their intellectual development, sacrificing challenging discussions for the possibility that a student might feel upset.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“many tech CEOs strictly regulate their own children’s technology use. When New York Times reporter Nick Bilton talked to Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs in late 2010, he asked Jobs if his kids loved the iPad. “They haven’t used it,” Jobs said. “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.” Bilton was shocked, but he later found that many other tech experts also limited their children’s screen time, from the cofounder of Twitter to the former editor of Wired magazine. So even people who love technology—and make a living off it—are cautious about their kids using it too much. As Adam Alter put it in his book Irresistible, “It seemed as if the people producing tech products were following the cardinal rule of drug dealing: Never get high on your own supply.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Reliable birth control, legalized abortion, and a cultural shift toward parenthood as a choice made them [generation me/millennials] the most wanted generation of children in American history.”
― Jean M. Twenge, Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable Than Ever Before

“...social media is not real life. Her photos, which looked like casual snaps, actually took several hours to set up and up to a hundred attempts to get right...”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Teens are physically safer than ever and are making less risky choices than generations past. It’s part of a larger picture of growing up more slowly rather than an overall shift toward responsibility, but it is still undeniably good that they are safer. Other trends are more troubling: How can we protect our kids from anxiety, depression, and loneliness in our digital age? What can parents and colleges do to ease the transition from high school to college when fewer students have experienced independence”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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

“Technology and individualism worked together to form a generation whose needs and wants would change dramatically over their lifetimes but who would always be guided by the idea of placing one’s own views and choices first—a concept that led to both greater acceptance of others and more self-centeredness.”
― Jean M. Twenge, Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future

“We have the most complete and instant access to information in all of history, and we’re using it to watch funny cat videos.”
― Jean M. Twenge, 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