Posted on 04/21/2006 11:54:15 AM PDT by Incorrigible
BY EVELYN THEISS
They are brash and cynical. They believe they're entitled to quick financial and professional success. They're also lonely and anxious.
That's the picture that psychologist Jean Twenge draws in her new book about the young men and women she dubs "Generation Me."
On the plus side, these young people are confident and also extremely tolerant of those who are different from them. Born in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, they are the children of baby boomers, who she says were incorrectly considered the most self-focused generation.
Not even close, says Twenge, an associate professor at San Diego State University.
She's 34, and therefore part of "GenMe," as she calls it. She has spent more than a decade gathering data on what makes this group different from generations that came before. The results are the subject of her new book, "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable Than Ever Before."
Two trends are at the core of the book, says Twenge. They emerged in her comparison of personality tests given by researchers to thousands of boomers when they were young and to those in Generation Me in recent years.
"One is that there has been an incredible rise in self-esteem and belief in the individual; and on the flip side, there's been a large rise in anxiety and depression," she says.
Twenge suggests that the two biggest influences in increasing self-esteem were schools and the proliferation of self-help media -- though parents also played a part.
While students in earlier generations felt good about themselves when they accomplished something, now their self-esteem is high even if their performance is poor and they didn't put any effort into doing better, she says.
Twenge isn't the first researcher who has come down on the self-esteem movement. Former Hoover Institution research fellow Charles Sykes in the mid-1990s published a book called "Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write or Add."
And Twenge has her critics, including psychotherapist and author Belleruth Naparstek, who disagrees with Twenge's theory that increasing self-esteem has done such damage.
"I haven't read the study, but I think it's a matter of definition," says Naparstek. "I believe that any young adult who has cultivated his or her self-esteem has also cultivated a sense of compassion and responsibility to others, and I don't think that is missing in any way with this generation."
According to Twenge, her research shows that young people 30 and 40 years ago cared what other people thought of them, while the philosophy of today's youth is that what others think doesn't matter.
She says GenMe has been taught by parents and teachers that "you can be anything you want to be." So when young people see celebrity singers, actors and athletes on television shows and in magazines that celebrate their wealth, they develop unrealistic, even grandiose, ideas about what they will have and be able to afford.
With college, health care and housing costs skyrocketing, and jobs being exported to other countries, it's no surprise that young people get anxious and depressed when they slam up against economic and competitive realities, Twenge says.
Unrealistically high expectations might have been fueled by grade inflation in high school, Twenge says. Nearly half of students who were college freshman in 2004 had an A average, compared with 18 percent in 1968, according to a report by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. That occurred even as SAT scores declined over the years, and far fewer students reported studying six hours a week.
Many young people learned they didn't have to work all that hard in school to be rewarded, she says. So who can blame them for thinking those easy rewards will carry over to the work world.
Sykes says he isn't surprised at what Twenge's work shows.
"If you spend your life in a bubble-wrap of feel-good self-esteem, the real world is going to come as a rude shock," he says. "The self-esteem movement wasn't designed to prepare children for adulthood or adversity; it didn't prepare them for the bumps and bruises of life."
But Naparstek says it isn't just young people who have been negatively affected by the emphasis on celebrities.
"This whole business of translating success into strictly material terms leaves everyone addicted to goodies and starving for them," she says. "It makes people want to fill their emptiness with stuff, but I don't think that's strictly an issue for young people -- it makes everyone crazy."
Twenge says studies show that twice as many young people reported symptoms of panic attacks in 1995 compared with 1980. While the suicide rate for middle-aged people has declined steeply since 1950, the suicide rate for young people has more than doubled.
Twenge theorizes that besides dashed expectations about life, other factors contributing to depression and anxiety are the loneliness and isolation that many young people face as they are likelier to live alone, postpone marriage and hook up sexually rather than having dating relationships.
April 20, 2006
(Evelyn Theiss is a staff writer for The Plain Dealer of Cleveland. She can be contacted at etheiss@plaind.com.)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
What has this woman been smoking?
People just love to look at themselves in mirrors.
More confident because they weren't the providers of trash reading, didn't waste a decade of their lives conjuring it, and are more miserable for being pounded with it via someone who focus's like a LASER beam on information that is worthless except for bending minds and self gratification.
Let's not blame this on the men of generation X. We aren't avoiding marriage because it interferes with our online gaming. In America the laws regarding marriage are stacked against men. How many times would you cross the street if there were more than a 50% chance you weren't going to make it to the other side?
I am an X'er and almost all of my friends are of the same generation. I have friends who wish to have families but they can't find any American women in their late 20's, who want to settle down. The gals are all too busy chasing the 10% of American men they find desirable, building "careers" and partying. I have been approached by women in their mid-30's who have one or two illegitimate children and a sexual history twice as long as the coolest jock I knew in High School. Not interested thanks. Feminism wanted women to act like the worst caricatures of men and to destroy the family. Mission accomplished!
Instead of risking (another) marriage to an American woman, (who initiate 70% of the divorces in the US and who have everything to gain by it), I and many of my friends have decided to concentrate on building enough wealth to retire while we are young enough to enjoy it somewhere more man friendly.
This is so true and we've paid a huge price that has really begun to set in. For example, I knew a woman who had six, yes six abortions, was totally materialist, spent most her money on nice clothes, nice cars, she binge ate then threw it all up. She had at best one two year long relationship with a man that ripped her off. According to her she was empowered. Last year she died from cancer at age 40 with nor real relationship. This woman considered herself a Buddihist and very spiritual. But she screwed people over all the time. To the end she voted Democrat.
Seeing this all around me eventually brought me back to conservative values and believing in God. I was a latch key kid and man, when the solution of God was offered to me, it was like finally having a guiding parent and some stability. I wonder if some of this is true for the generations that follow and partially explains the movement back toward religion-the stability, love and esteeming values that where so attacked when we grew up. Also my generation have aborted so many babies as a birth control method, I just want to cry when I think of it and what our nation and the world has lost from all this selfish self centered destruction. /rant
No wonder my HS class was the smallest in a long time....('87)
I think it is. More and more of my generation are turning back to the values of their grandparents and great-grandparents. Which of course were Faith, Family, and Country.
Have you heard the term, "Crunchy Conservatives"? It is a book that is out about how many in our generation are returning to a more simple life, etc...
Do a search on that word or "Crunchy Cons" here on FR and read what you can about it. I agree with most of what I have read. I hope the trend continues.
BTW...I am so glad you came back to the one and true Father. Welcome Home.
ROFL!
Oh heavens! My, my oh my, you beast!
"Spare the rod...."
Why, why...the most Reverend Dr. Spock ruled that mentality out long ago! :-o
"More confident because they weren't the providers of trash reading, didn't waste a decade of their lives conjuring it, and are more miserable for being pounded with it via someone who focus's like a LASER beam on information that is worthless except for bending minds and self gratification."
Damn right. "Entitled to success without working for it"
That sounds mysteriously like SocialSecurity, and we all damn well know that GenX was, like, totally responsible for creating _that_ program.
Yeah. Personally I blame the Gen-X'ers for that.
People just love to look at themselves in mirrors.
True again. While I'm sure there are hordes of people more self-absorbed than myself, what's in it for me?
I understand completely what you are saying. (I am a female by the way). But have you ever tried finding a lady at your church, or place of worship?
Thanks so much! I just looked up the Crunchy Conservatives book and read an excerpt. It completely resonates. I hope it continues as well. I really appreciate the acknowledgment it made me tear up. :-)
You are more than welcome.
Hmmm... but, wait:
Born in the 1970s, '80s and '90s, they are the children of baby boomers, who she says were incorrectly considered the most self-focused generation.
Ahh, so maybe the only reason I'm not brash, cynical, lonely, anxious, and with a sense of entitlement is because my folks were a little too old to be boomers (1942 and 1943)? Or maybe vast over-generalizations are just that...
My immediate thought was the same as yellowdoghunter's. That seems like a perfect place for many reasons, the least of which is being with someone that has solid core values that one can rely on and trust to help build a loving, lasting relationship. Money can only replace that spiritual and relational place for only so long in my experience.
Who can understand what they do or say?
Why can they be like we were -- perfect in every way?
What's the matter with kids today?
I weep for the future.
Sounds like a lot of people are in for a very rude awakening.
It ought to be fun to watch.
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