Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: emerging adulthood, quarterlife crisis, equality revolution, United States, The Age of Anxiety, The Equality Revolution (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In their 2000 book, Millennials Rising, Neil Howe and William Straus argued that children born after 1982 will grow up to become America's next Greatest Generation—filled with a sense of optimism and civic duty—but according to San Diego State psychology professor Twenge, such predictions are wishful thinking. Lumping together Gen-X and Y under the moniker "GenMe," Twenge argues that those born after 1970 are more self-centered, more disrespectful of authority and more depressed than ever before. When the United States started the war in Iraq, she points out, military enlistments went down, not up. (Born in 1971, Twenge herself is at the edge of the Me Generation.) Her book is livened with analysis of films, magazines and TV shows, and with anecdotal stories from her life and others'. The real basis of her argument, however, lies in her 14 years of research comparing the results of personality tests given to boomers when they were under 30 and those given to GenMe-ers today. Though Twenge's opinionated asides may occasionally set Gen-X and -Yers' teeth on edge, many of her findings are fascinating. And her call to "ditch the self-esteem movement" in favor of education programs that encourage empathy and real accomplishment could spare some Me-ers from the depression that often occurs when they hit the realities of today's increasingly competitive workplace. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

A new book tackles the 18-to-35-year-old generation's problems--those they face and those they create.Twenge's book is comprehensive and scholarly, filled with statistics and thoughtful observations about the group she's dubbed Generation Me. These young people were raised with the idea of self-esteem being more important than achievement, which has caused them to place the self above all else. Such beliefs also have created a generation of young people who believe every dream is attainable but who aren't prepared to deal with discovering it isn't so. Twenge notes that today's young parents are especially lenient with their children and reluctant to discipline them, suggesting that perhaps the next generation will be even worse off. Twenge believes Generation Me would benefit from a heavy dose of realism. Accessible and a must-read for the generation they address. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Edition edition (March 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743276981
• ISBN-13: 978-0743276986
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (86 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,469 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

116 of 144 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A confused and confusing polemic, July 14, 2006

By	G. Desjardins - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before (Hardcover)

First, the high points. The author has a lot of interesting survey data that she uses compare the attitudes of "baby boomers" and "generation me".

She shows how today's youth are much more accepting of other races, cultures and sexual orientations; how people are open about their feelings; how women no longer face the kind of discrimination that they did 30 years ago; how young people want to do fulfilling things with their lives and are more self-reliant than ever.

And of course we see the downside: narcissism due to what can only be described as too much self-esteem; an unwillingness to take personal responsibility; too much of a focus on money and celebrity; and an epidemic of depression that no one has yet found a cause for.

The contrast between the generations is very interesting - dating someone outside your race is no longer an issue; the average woman in 2005 has a more aggressive personality (as measured by her survey) than the average man did in 1968. All cool stuff, and it would have been great if the author could have distilled the most significant of these differences into a single chapter.

Unfortunately, she didn't, and I found this to be a very frustrating read overall. She discusses the mismatch between the ambitions of young people and the careers they ultimately end up in. She is right to question kids who want to be "made" into famous hip-hop stars or models or actors, but she also sneers at all of the kids who want to be doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc.

She devotes pages - if not chapters - to the idea that "work should suck" and that young people should not expect to find their dream jobs, let alone fulfilling employment - but then when she discusses what young people can do to be more realistic, she lauds two 25-year-olds who quit their jobs and biked across the US to raise money for charity.

To make matters worse, she chides young people for being cynical about the government, and then chides them for not being cynical enough about their jobs. To top it all off, she thens admits that, as a professor, she "[doesn't] know much about nonacademic career paths".

One thing she does know - and she repeats it numerous times in the book - is that not just anyone out there can become a college professor like her. In many ways, this book feels like the author's attempt to get back at people who made fun of her and wronged her when she was growing up. Even though she's 33 years old and some of the subjects she talks to are 12, she often calls this "her generation" and makes generalizations about it based on her experience. She writes: "Publish the damn honor roll...[I]t's [a] small bit of high school glory enjoyed by the kids who will someday be our doctors and lawyers." Though of course she cautions against encouraging even the smartest and most capable students lest they become convinced that they don't need to work hard to accomplish their goals.

Ultimately, she ends up blaming the victims. Today's 15-to-25-year-olds don't run the world, their parents do. For all her talk about personal responsibility, she devotes exactly one sentence to telling parents that they bear some of the blame for how their kids have turned out.

The author had the opportunity to write something substantial about the changes that have happened over the last two generations. Instead, she decided to write a polemic against people who are not just like her. This will certainly appeal to anyone who likes to believe that "these damn kids are so disrespectful these days", but an insightful book, it's not.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not even close to perfect, March 13, 2008

By	Critic at large (East Coast USA) - See all my reviews

This book starts and ends as an excellent research oriented attitudinal appraisal of America's youth in the here and now. The author has analyzed over forty years of surveys on the attitudes of America's youth and how they have changed.

Her conclusion: increasing sense of entitlement, "it's all about me", so far so good. Her conclusions on how to deal with the issue from the standpoint of psychology also seem "on the money", especially as regards the inflated "feel-good" opinion and sense of academic and personal accomplishment many of today's students (and their largely late boomer and GenX parents) seem to buy into.

Then, what's not to like? Answer the middle of the book and the material presented there, which seem to complicate and in some cases almost contradict the overall theme. Also an issue is the author's lumping of everyone born in the last 30 years into the Me-Generation, which she then describes broadly and with which she seems to identify by virtue of her birth in the early 1970s.

There is evidence from the study of families and social development that at least some elements of being "contemporary" in terms of youthful experience require a proximity of about seven years, anything on the outside of this range is suspect in terms of being "generational". This is far different than the decades long trends that both "boomerologists" and those studying GenX, GenY or other broadly identified groups seem to focus on.

As the idea of "generations" as used in this context is actually the result of pop culture and marketing, I find it a bit amazing that a research social scientist would even buy into it at all! Admittedly, she probably did so to capture a long term trend that she sees in her data, but nonetheless, it is probably not really justifiable if one wants to understand the experiences that have shaped different age cohorts.

So, after correctly assessing that the so-called me generation of the 1970s was mild in comparison to the present orgy of self, the author does not really get into a detailed analysis of the various trends and sub-populations. Instead they are painted with the same broad brush. It would have been more useful to take a closer less superficial look.

For instance, in discussing the last several "generations", she correctly points out that the early baby boomers were raised by WWII-era parents who took "no lip" from their off-spring and expected rigid codes of behavior in return for wonderful opportunity (by the standards of the day) provided their off-spring. These were the assumed attitudes against which the "protests" of the 1960s played out.

But, they were not within the personal experience of all born between the end of WWII and the early 1960s, as the early boomers had already altered these rules by the time that those born after the mid 1950s where starting to enter their teen years. The same is true about sexual issues. The response and experiences of the boomers were hardly uniform, and varied greatly depending on education, family backgrounds etc, and age cohort. If you are going to do the "generational parent-offspring comparison" you have to look at the whole picture.

The author also spends time in the middle of the book sympathetically addressing what she sees as the challenging world that the post-boomers face. Here she could include a bit of economic history. While she discusses the social changes of the late 1960s and 70s, she does not really mention the economic and social challenges of that era.

Issues such as run-away inflation, the Vietnam draft, the Watergate government crisis, the oil embargo, stagflation, high unemployment and other less than ideal circumstances that faced the "boomer" parents of younger Americans are given little or no mention. House prices may have been a good deal less, but interest rates were frequently much higher. Lots of early generations had to face housing issues, and many can recall that housing prices in the late 70s and 80s seemed out of reach at the time.

Nor does she compare this history to presumed challenges facing today's youth, who seem to buy into the myth that the entire baby boom lived in a world of economic and social stability with guaranteed success just for the asking. College educated people have frequently had to face less than ideal economic circumstances upon graduation that impacted on their "dreams", and for those not fortunate enough to attend college, it's even worse.

Yet, after lampooning the high expectations of today's youth, the author seems to sympahtize with them because they face challenges "unkown" to previous generations. Not really so! Many of the changes that have effects on today's younger people have been in progress for several generations.

These include globalization, an increased pace of life, increased mobility and the need for expensive post-secondary education. What may be new are the perceptions of them. This would actually support her main thesis, but instead of developing it, she seems to buy into many of its myths.

As an example, the author talks about the difficulty in meeting high expectations for careers. However, for the early cohort of her self-defined Generation Me and very late baby boomers who got into the job market in the 1990s as college grads, there was a boom of opportunity and high starting salaries that was not experienced by early baby boomers or late Generation Me.

One could argue quite nicely that the economic problems of today's youth and their extended adolescence are merely one more chapter in a changing economic environment, where world economic events and expectations don't always fit nicely together. They are not really all that new, or specific to the last several decades, but yet the seem to play out in a context where only a few years of difference in age and experience seem to alter perceptions of reality.

As an interesting study of generational attitudes and sense of self, the book has something to recommend it. However, it is not the end all be all that some claim it to be. It would have been a far better book had the author stuck to her original theme and not sandwiched additional material that does not really support the arguments she is making.

96 of 125 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I thought it was going to be good....but...., August 9, 2006

By	Sam B "Sam B" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before (Hardcover)

I was very excited to read this book after perusing all of the positive reviews on Amazon and other sites. As I began the book, it did not disappoint. The author seemed to have a real insight into generational differences, and had fantastic research to back up many of her points.

While it was presented well, her foundational assertions are incorrect. To combine people born in the early 70s with those born in the 90s is fundamentally flawed on so many levels that it is hardly worth discussing. The research dividing post 1964 generations into gen x and generation next or gen y is far more compelling and in much more abundance than anything presented in this text. Her explanation of why her definitions are superior to these is woefully inadequate.

While the beginning of the book is made up of one insight after another backed up by some quality and unique research. The rest of the book is one point of hearsay after another backed up by quotes from Dawson's Creek and Teen magazines. Seriously! I was shocked that a supposed academic would use dialogue from a television show as insight into a generation, and then have the audacity to call it "research". She would actually use fictional television dialogue to lend support to her analysis. If she hoped to define a generation, a lot more is needed than pop culture references.

The final part of the book I will address is the recommendations section at the very end of the book. She recommends the government create national childcare, expand public school to 3 and 4 year olds, and change school hours. What does this have to do with her topic??? Nothing!!! Where did this come from? The only connection to her text is her complaints about the high cost of living. Let us look into those complaints a little while we are on the topic. She complains that the cost of living is so high in highly desirable metropolitan areas that young people out of college cannot afford to live there on one salary, and that women have to work to afford this type of housing. You mean to tell me that we live in a society where those straight out of college cannot buy into the most desirable 2% of the housing market in this country. What a tragedy. Does she realize that the starting salary of a college graduate could afford to put the roof over the heads of a spouse and children in every county in this country? It may not be the nice housing in San Diego that she seems to see as minimally acceptable, but it is housing. She describes her generation as being one of entitlement, and then goes on to unknowingly prove it through her asinine series of recommendations at the end of the text.