In her 2023 release, Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future Jean M. Twenge, A Psychology Professor from San Diego State University, along with her research staff, offers an impressive cache of research, surveys and charts that document the opinions, whether they be financial, political, religious, or any other topic from before World War II to the present time.
As part of this large volume of research, she is able to offer a number of conclusions that are supported by data from a number of reliable sources in the field of data collection, and her analyses for these conclusions are thought provoking and greatly at odds with what one might think, if all one is being informed by is the internet or television.
Many conventional theories of historical analyses center around major events in history. We’ve all had the water cooler conversation about what they were doing when they got word of the Twin Towers Attacks on 9/11, as just one example. Twenge’s analysis is based on data from the collected surveys of 39 million Americans from every generation in the title. For example, my father is from the Silent Generation (born 1932) and would have been in the earlier part of that generation which began in 1925, according to sociologists and demographers, and ended in 1945 with the end of World War II.
She argues that, unlike traditional historical theories of “major events,” technology represents the greater influence for change which drives each generations unique makeup. This, in and of itself explains much of why we see what we see in the world today, and especially in the younger generations coming of age here in America.
Many of the opinions that we have in America, regardless of one’s opinion, get blown out of the water with the torpedo of facts presented in graphic form by Professor Twenge and the research staff in these pages. Just for one example, it was considered for decades that women had a distinct disadvantage in college graduation rates, when in fact the opposite was true and is easily verifiable.
There is just so much research on a myriad of topics across each generation that this brief book review would be too voluminous to cover, but everything is exceptionally well documented, explained, and graphed.
The world has changed a great deal since the book was published in 2023, she and other scholars refer to the generation coming of age into mid-teenaged tears as Polars back then, but now the most widely used generational reference for that age group (born 2013 and later) is Generation Alpha, thus starting the Greek Alphabet over again.
There is a chapter detailing specifics for each generation, and includes topics such as marriage patterns, race relations, political affiliations, mental health, economic well-being perceptions, lifestyle values, religious feelings, and so many other things, too lengthy to detail here. Fun fact, though—Dr. Twenge includes the most popular birth names for each generation (girls and boys), famous people of that generation, and the population breakdown by ethnicity for each time period.
Back to the technological impact of historical change.
Twenge argues that more than historical events, technological change is the driver of each generation’s abilities, opinions, and means of moving forward in the world, and in their individual lives. This is a well founded argument in the age of the internet, and nowhere has the world seen, for better or worse, this change impact the world than with the invention of the Smartphone.
Thirty-two years since the first one came out we now have the most powerful technological devices in history in practically every American hand. It can record everything, navigate one to nearly anywhere in the world, make financial trades in seconds, and make or ruin lives just as quickly.
It is a profoundly powerful device, potentially for good use, but usually resulting in the negative result taking place.
To sum up, Jean M. Twenge, PhD has assembled a monumental volume of research in layman’s terms, and supported it with great and well established research as far back as records have been kept. While one may disagree with some of the findings for what the future may bring in the Alpha Generation, one never knows how things might change or what technology will become known that improve lives, or give greater hope to mankind from America, the greatest nation in history.
Get your copy of Generations HERE.
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