Quotes from Jean M. Twenge

Another argument is that social media and texting are just teens interacting with one another just as they always have. Perhaps, but electronic communication is linked to poor mental health, whereas interacting in person is linked to good mental health. The two types of interaction are not the same.

Many teens communicate with their friends electronically far more than they do face-to-face, with as-yet-unknown consequences for their budding social skills. We already know that depression and anxiety have risen at an unprecedented rate and that twice as many young teens commit suicide as just a few years ago. It seems abundantly clear that screen time needs to be cut.

Convinced that the world is against them, some young people have decided there's no point in trying, a viewpoint linked to failure. Countering this view will be one of the biggest challenges of the next decade.

different for other reasons as well. Education took fewer years and lives were shorter, so development happened faster at each life stage. That meant more independence for young children; more working and dating for teens; marriage, children, and jobs for those in their late teens and early 20s; feeling old by 45; and death in one's 60s.

In the three years I spent working on this book, making dozens of line graphs, reading campus newspapers, and listening to the stories and opinions of young people during in-depth interviews, I've realized this: iGen'ers are scared, maybe even terrified.

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.

They are the last American generation to remember the years of the Great Depression, and the last to know a time before the end of World War II. Unlike the Greatest generation just before them, who were adults at the time, Silents experienced these events as children and adolescents. Nearly all Silents were born too late to serve in World War II, creating a dividing line in generational experience.