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

by Jean M. Twenge

In 2016, the number one Billboard song of the year was “Stitches” by 18-year-old iGen’er Shawn Mendes. “Your words cut deeper than a knife,” he sings. “I’ll be needing stitches.” The music video features Mendes being attacked by an invisible force that throws him to the ground, smashes his head into a car window, and pushes him through a wall, leaving visible bruises and cuts on his face. After he washes his face and stands up to look in the mirror again, the injuries are gone. Although on the surface the song is about a breakup, it can also be seen as an iGen metaphor for the cutting power of words—the pain that is mental rather than physical but (in iGen’ers’ view) hurts just as much, even if it doesn’t leave physical scars. With iGen’ers already mentally vulnerable due to higher levels of depression, words feel harmful.