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

Kevin is not the most organized student: he initially neglects to have his dad sign the back of the permission slip, and when I talk to the class later, he forgets his question by the time I call on him. But when I ask him what makes his generation different, he doesn’t hesitate: “I feel like we don’t party as much. People stay in more often. My generation lost interest in socializing in person—they don’t have physical get-togethers, they just text together, and they can just stay at home.” Kevin is onto something. For example, iGen teens spend less time at parties than any previous generation (see Figure 3.1). The trends are similar for college students, who are asked how many hours a week they spent at parties during their senior year in high school. In 2016, they said two hours a week—only a third of the time GenX students spent at parties in 1987. The decline in partying is not due to iGen’ers’ studying more; as we saw in chapter 1, homework time is the same or lower. The trend is also not due to immigration or changes in ethnic composition; the decline is nearly identical among white teens.