Why Do Young People Seem So Fragile? - Dr Jean Twenge

1. 0:00 – 2:09

   Intro

   1. JTDr Jean Twenge0:00

      And then the one that really knocked me out of my chair was the poll of U.S. adults that said, "Do you believe that the founders of the United States are better described as heroes or as villains?" And four out of ten Gen Z said villains. It was only one out of ten for boomers. And that's interesting because that's, that's a fence 250 years in the past. It's not even an assessment of the current moment and there's that very, very strong negativity. (whoosh)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:26

      Why write another book about generations?

   3. JTDr Jean Twenge0:30

      So my previous books were on one generation apiece and a lot of it was about the effects of technology. And I give talks on, on teens and young adults and people say, "But hasn't this technology affected everybody?" And that got me thinking and I realized, of course the answer is yes and there's all kinds of other big cultural changes. And thought it would be great to look at all of the living generations and see where they are and how they're different.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:56

      One of the first ones that you wrote was Generation Me, which was back in 2006. Given that you've been tracking my generation for quite a while, what are your thoughts or what's the story of how millennials have done in your opinion? Did your predictions come to light?

   5. JTDr Jean Twenge1:13

      You know, in, uh, a little bit, um, but not entirely. So my prediction was, one prediction was that, um, millennials would find adulthood somewhat challenging, and I think that has been borne out. Uh, millennials after all were the ones who coined adulting as a verb. Um, and certainly there's, there's been, you know, a good amount of negativity, um, online from, from millennials about, you know, um, many topics. But millennials have actually done really, really well economically. So there's this i- idea that kind of started especially around the Great Recession of millennials being broke and all needing side gigs and will be the first generation to not do as well as their parents. And so that was one of the first things that I looked at and found actually millennials are making more money than Gen X-ers and boomers who are at the same age.

   6. CWChris Williamson2:07

      Is there something different

2. 2:09 – 7:18

   Is Gen-Z Particularly Unique?

   1. CWChris Williamson2:09

      or particularly unique about the behavior and the views of Gen Z than the most recent generation? Is it just a step-by-step iteration/continuation of what came before or is there something particularly different about this one?

   2. JTDr Jean Twenge2:24

      You know, I, I, I think there is because, you know, if you look at a lot of the other generational progressions, say from boomers to Gen X-ers to millennials around things like individualism, it was a pretty linear progression. But then something kind of broke between millennials and Gen Z, or iGen as, as I call them. There was a h- just a really big increase in teens starting to say they felt left out. They felt lonely. They felt like they couldn't do anything right. They felt like they weren't enjoying life. Those are classic symptoms of depression. This all started to rise, um, with teens a- around 2012 and those increases just, just kept going. It was really the most fundamental generational break I had ever seen in decades, you know, o- of doing this research. It was just this very sudden shift from self-confidence to depression and from optimism from millennials to pessimism for Gen Z.

   3. CWChris Williamson3:24

      Well, you've mentioned before the fact that millennials, uh, can sometimes be, uh, victims themselves a little bit and that there was concerns about whether or not they were going to do worse than their parents and, you know, this adulting thing which suggests that you've got this sort of long life strategy where you're becoming a- an adult infant for maybe a little bit longer than you should have done. How do we know that Gen Z isn't just yet another generation which the one before it feels like is a complete catastrophe but in however many years time is gonna flourish and it's gonna be another millennial situation?

   4. JTDr Jean Twenge3:58

      And may- maybe that will happen. You know, I think there's a couple things that have, that has me worried. Um, and then one is that that increase in depression has now spread up the age scale to younger millennials, to 26 to 34 year olds. They were actually doing pretty well until about 2015, so a few years later than we saw the big upticks for teens. So there's something going on in the culture that is slowly creeping up, um, to, to affect a lot of people. So that, you know, I, I think is not a good sign. The other is we know from clinical psychology that the younger you experience your first episode of depression, the more likely it is to reoccur later in life. And with the rates now being so high among Gen Z, you know, that's concerning. But even with that said, sure, we don't know what the future is going to bring in every way and they're, e- they could end up doing very well. Absolutely.

   5. CWChris Williamson4:52

      What would you say is the story of mental health across the generations then?

   6. JTDr Jean Twenge4:57

      Yeah. So it's, it's kind of a, a complex story. So when we start with the silent generation, so those are the generation before the boomers, they actually look very good in mental health compared to the generation before them, the greatest generation who fought World War II and then the boomers after them. And these are also people who are o- older now who, uh, went through the COVID-19 pandemic, who were the most vulnerable and yet actually had the best mental health. So that's where we start. Then with boomers, mental health starts to look worse, um, across the board, um, days of, of, of, you know, feeling more s- more stressed and in poorer mental health, suicide rates, everything and starts to look worse for boomers. Um, Gen X kind of continued the boomer trends, actually improved them a little bit after as teens having a lot of struggles with mental health. In middle age, Gen X has actually done relatively well. Millennials did really well as teens, very happy, optimistic, but then that depression has started to come for them as well. And then for Gen Z is where we see unfortunately the most consistent...... downturn with pretty much every indicator, depression, self-harm, suicide, everything, um, going in the wrong direction.

   7. CWChris Williamson6:15

      Is it a challenge doing studies over such a long period of time in different environments with different people, potentially using different methodologies, longitudinally, trying to compare them all, maybe across multiple territories? H- how accurate can you be with the data for this sort of stuff?

   8. JTDr Jean Twenge6:32

      Yeah. It, it is definitely a challenge. So what I've tried to do in the book is rely on the datasets that have been consistent for the longest period of time. So there's a survey of 18-year-olds in the US that goes back to 1976 and, uh, has used the exact same questions. Um, there's a lot of poor mental health that has measured that since 1993. There's the General Social Survey which has stuff on, on, uh, politics an- and sexuality and a lot of other things that goes back to 1972. Because you're right, that's what you have to, to try to find is that data that has been consistently measured so you can make those comparisons.

   9. CWChris Williamson7:17

      The

3. 7:18 – 16:47

   Why Are So Many Young Girls Considering Suicide?

   1. CWChris Williamson7:18

      most concerning statistic that I've seen which has been floating around the internet for the last couple of months, the CDC found that nearly one in three high school girls considered suicide in 2021, a 60% increase since 2011. More girls also now report feeling so sad and hopeless they couldn't engage in their normal activities for at least two weeks in the last year. Why? What's going on with this? Why is it girls? Why is it not boys? There's also a liberal conservative split here.

   2. JTDr Jean Twenge7:46

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson7:46

      What is your reading of digging into all of the data?

   4. JTDr Jean Twenge7:51

      So it is happening for boys as well. Um, the increases in, um, say depression and suicide are not as large for teen boys as they are for t- teen girls but they are absolutely still there, so we can't ignore boys, you know, i- in this conversation. So that CDC data is just one data point, uh, out of many that pretty much all show the same pattern, that teen mental health started to get worse after about 2011. That's when, when that increase began to happen and it just kept going. And just for context, teen depression doubled between 2011 and 2019. In other words, before the pandemic, so th- it's clear the pandemic is not the original cause, um, of, of these trends. They started more than 10 years ago. So then we have to say, okay, what happened in 2011 that then kept going and reverberated across the decade that had the biggest impact on teens' day-to-day lives? And it's clear that that's new technology, smartphones, social media. T- the end of 2012 was the first time the majority of Americans owned a smartphone. It's also around the time that social media use moved from optional to virtually mandatory among teens. It's also when social media itself changed. It's around when Facebook bought Instagram, for example, when, you know, the like button showed up, and the retweet button on, on Twitter. All, all these things happened around that same time period and that's when teen depression started going up. And it's, it's not just the phones, it's not just social media, it's also that those had ripple effects. Teens also started spending less time with their friends face-to-face around that same time. They also started spending less time sleeping around that time, and those are both things that are likely linked to th- that increased technology use. So that's not a good picture for mental health when you are sitting in your room alone scrolling through social media at 2:00 AM.

   5. CWChris Williamson9:54

      (laughs) Are there some types of screen time that are worse than others?

   6. JTDr Jean Twenge9:59

      It looks like that's the case. So, for example, there's a, a big dataset of teens in the UK and the link with depression is higher for social media use than it is for TV time or gaming.

   7. CWChris Williamson10:21

      Right. That's interesting. Why do you think that is? What is unique about social media that is causing that to stand out?

   8. JTDr Jean Twenge10:28

      Yeah. I mean, you know, to be fair, spending too much time on anything is usually not the best of ideas. But social media does have some unique qualities. So one is that its algorithms are designed to keep people on those apps for as long as possible and coming back as often as possible because that's how they make the most money. And teens are especially susceptible to that because their self-control is just not as developed. Most adults have a hard time, you know, putting down social media. It, it, it has that quality to it. Plus, uh, you know, Facebook's own research showed these big issues with body image for teen girls and, and young women on Instagram. Everybody looks perfect, everybody's life is more glamorous, everybody is always on vacation o- on Facebook. It distorts reality. You know, we are comparing ourselves to others but we're not comparing ourselves to others, you know, in real life, we're comparing ourselves to others the way they're presented on social media which is, which is warped, and that's also not good for self-esteem or for mental health.

   9. CWChris Williamson11:39

      Why is there a difference between boys and girls?

   10. JTDr Jean Twenge11:42

       So I think one of the reasons, one of the reasons the increase has been, you know, bigger for girls is that girls spend more time on social media and girls are more impacted by social media. So the link between depression and social media use is stronger for girls than for boys, and probably because of a, a lot of the body image issues that come up. Also just the way teen girls in particular relate to each other, it's often around, you know, emotions and, um, bullying...... it happens with words rather than physically more often and social media is like a perfect storm for those things.

   11. CWChris Williamson12:17

       Yeah, I've been doing a lot of learning over the last couple of months about intersexual competition, the way that female friendships work, and this very, very highly attenuated understanding of social groups, hierarchies, dynamics. You know, we always think about men as being the hierarchical, uh, status-driven group. But it seems like both, uh, in terms of genetic predisposition and in terms of behavior, females are much more socially attuned. They understand body language, facial expressions much more. They use gossip as weapons rather than fists, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, I can see how a quantified metric of popularity essentially, which is what you could see social media as, especially if you're not using it for, uh, to be a content creator but just to kind of keep in touch with your friends and see who's popular and who's in and who's out. A girl, I- I've never once been, um, told off because I've unfollowed a guy, but it has happened a couple of times because of unfollowing a girl.

   12. JTDr Jean Twenge13:19

       Yeah. And y- y- you're absolutely right. I mean, popularity has always been really important for teen girls and now it's quantifiable. How many followers do you have? How many likes did you get on that post of yourself in a bikini? I mean, that's the other thing you have to really think about when it comes to this. I mean, Instagram's a platform where young women and teen girls post pictures of themselves and ask people to comment.

   13. CWChris Williamson13:49

       You're outsourcing your sense of self-worth to the world, to the internet. How much of this is present outside of the US? You mentioned that there was a study there in the UK, but I did see some stuff online saying that the link between social media and depression doesn't seem to be quite so strong outside of the US. Is that right?

   14. JTDr Jean Twenge14:07

       Um, not, not, that's not my understanding of, of the literature. Um, plus we, we now have more and more data on those mental health trends over time, uh, particularly for, for loneliness but also for self-harm and for depression, that particularly in English-speaking countries, it's a very, very consistent pattern, that, uh, depression and loneliness start to rise, uh, among teens after about 2012 and keep going. I mean, the, the, the pattern is virtually identical to that in the United States. And for adolescent loneliness, we see it in 36 out of 37 countries around the world.

   15. CWChris Williamson14:41

       Is social media affecting each generation or each age cohort differently?

   16. JTDr Jean Twenge14:49

       I think so. Um, you know, I think the impact on teens is, is very clear and, you know, arguably more, more negative. Um, but with, you know, with mental health issues starting to go up the age scale, uh, didn't used to be there was those, uh, a- any increases in depression for 26 to 34 year olds. And starting after about 2015, it started to spread to that group as well. So maybe that's social media, maybe that's other, other pressures. It's a, it's a, I think it's a more complex picture there. But there, there is, especially since, you know, the mid-2010s, just with cancel culture and, um, on- online culture and negative news gets clicks, there's this toxic soup, you know, that we all seem to be living in that I think is having an impact on everybody.

   17. CWChris Williamson15:44

       Yeah, one of the most interesting things that I learned recently was the, uh, increase of suicides in pretty much all age and gender categories over the last few years. Uh, suicides for middle-aged white males are five times that of teen girls, and they show a similar pattern as well. I think that the other highest group of suicides is mid-20s Native American men.

   18. JTDr Jean Twenge16:05

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson16:05

       What do you think is going on there? That, that can't be smartphones and social media, surely.

   20. JTDr Jean Twenge16:10

       Right. Because, uh, I mean, depression, suicide, any of these things are multiply determined. That's prob- that's usually not the question I'm trying to answer though. I'm not trying to figure out what are all of the causes of mental health issues or suicide, but why have they increased? And at least in the US, suicides among middle-aged people are actually down, and they're up among young adults and teens. So they're, they're starting to converge, even though yes, you're right, that is wh- generally where the suicide rate is the highest, it's starting to equalize.

   21. CWChris Williamson16:39

       Oh, in terms of the trend, how they're both moving together?

   22. JTDr Jean Twenge16:42

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

   23. CWChris Williamson16:42

       That's, that's interesting. Okay. So let's say that you've got the, the smartphone addiction,

4. 16:47 – 20:57

   The Main Causes of the Mental Health Crisis

   1. CWChris Williamson16:47

      uh, the, the use of social media, all of the ways that that gets interpreted by, uh, both males and females even more so. What else is contributing to this? I'm sure that, uh, as you say, this is, uh, contributing and a, a, a chunk of it, but what else is going on outside which is causing this mental health crisis?

   2. JTDr Jean Twenge17:06

      So you mean for teens?

   3. CWChris Williamson17:08

      Yes.

   4. JTDr Jean Twenge17:09

      Well, you know, I think a lot of it is the ripple effects, that, uh, just that th- the way teens socialize has, has fundamentally changed, that it's moved online, and then teens are spending less time with each other face to face, which is much better for, for mental health than just scrolling through social media. You know, and they're also spending less time sleeping. That is also really bad, um, for mental health. There's huge links between sleep and mental health outcomes. So it's, it, it's, it's like a, a, a perfect storm with the way teens spend, spend their time outside of school has fundamentally shifted, and has shifted in a way that they're spending more time on activities that tend to lead to unhappiness and depression and less time on activities that are protective-

   5. CWChris Williamson17:59

      Uh-

   6. JTDr Jean Twenge17:59

      ... against mental health issues.

   7. CWChris Williamson18:01

      Yeah. So it's not just the fact that you're using social media. It is what that time on social media replaces. So you're losing some of the positives and then you're adding on some of the negatives, and you've called that the ripple effect?

   8. JTDr Jean Twenge18:14

      Yeah, I mean that's, that's how I think of it, that, I mean, uh, sometimes I've, I've, I've said that the technology is, you know, the worm at the core of the apple, that it, it, th- it kind of all comes back to that, that it, it ripples out from there. And, you know, that's also the, the theory that I talk about a lot in, in the new book, is that technology has all of these wide-ranging effects, that it's not just we use different technology, it's how has that changed our behaviors? How has that changed our values? That, you know, is just one example. Technologically developed times and societies tend to be more individualistic, more focused on the self and less on others, and what you get from that is, uh, a mix of what's sometimes considered good and bad. You get more equality, but you also get more disconnection.

   9. CWChris Williamson19:06

      Yeah, you said that, uh, the drivers for generational differences are individualism, technology, and a slow life strategy. What's the dynamic that's going on there? Why is that important?

   10. JTDr Jean Twenge19:18

       Yeah. So technology is linked to individualism because technology makes individualism possible. Um, it makes it possible to live by yourself and then not depend on as many people because we have all these labor-saving devices and communication and everything else, and technology also leads to the life cycle slowing down. So at times and places when people live longer and education takes longer to finish, people have more time to grow up and more time to grow old. So the whole developmental trajectory from infancy to old age has slowed down, so children are less independent. Teenagers are less likely to do adult things like get their driver's license right away or have a paid job or go out on dates. Young adults marry later, have children later, settle into their careers later. Middle-aged people look and act younger than their parents or grandparents did, so 50 is the new 40. Um, older people enjoy longer lives and better health. So that's the slow life strategy. It has a huge impact on how each generation has lived their lives, leads to a lot of misunderstandings. You know, the grandparents are like, "Why are my millennial grandkids not married yet?" But this is something all the generations have seen. It has kept going for quite a long time, and, you know, my goal in the book is to help generations understand each other better, and I think understanding the slow life strategy and how that's played out is one big step in that direction.

   11. CWChris Williamson20:53

       One of the things that I've become fascinated by over the last couple of years has been behavioral genetics,

5. 20:57 – 24:28

   Overcoming Inherited Trauma

   1. CWChris Williamson20:57

      and the level of heritability of anxiety and depression is pretty high-

   2. JTDr Jean Twenge21:03

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson21:03

      ... but what we've seen is conditions of anxiety and depression, rates of that increase a lot in the last 10 years. How do you square that circle? The fact that we do have this massive biological predisposition, it is incredibly heritable, and yet we've been able to almost beat our genes-

   4. JTDr Jean Twenge21:22

      (laughs)

   5. CWChris Williamson21:22

      ... in, in a bad way (laughs) um, with, uh, with the last 10 years.

   6. JTDr Jean Twenge21:27

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, a bit, because th- there are environmental effects. So, um, in, in the classroom, personality psychology is what I, is what I teach. So anxiety, very similar to neuroticism in the big five, uh, like a lot of personality traits, it's about 50% heritable. Well, more accurately ex- explains 50% of the variation, you know, in a group of people, that it's probably due to, to genetic heritability. That still leaves us 50%. Mm, some of that's error in how we're measuring it, but I think it's, it speaks to just how big these environmental changes are, that there is such a large genetic component, yet we have still seen these enormous changes, because yeah, some, some people are going to maybe never be depressed in any environment, some people are gonna be depressed in any environment they're in, but then there's a big middle group where the environment is gonna have an impact. And, and it does, and, you know, you see this over time, but you also see it in, um, you know, other cultural comparisons. So, um, depression is virtually unknown among the Amish, and it's not 'cause they don't know where it is or, you know, what it is or that they don't get treatment for it. It's because their sense of community and how tight-knit they are and their sense of purpose is, is so strong, and if anyone is feeling sad, they, you know, immediately get support.

   7. CWChris Williamson22:47

      It's almost the opposite of an individualistic, uh, society. Yeah, I, um, I think one of the most difficult things that people have to swallow when they first learn about behavioral genetics is the fact that a good chunk of the outcomes that they're going to get with their self-development, their personal progress is, um, predisposed in one direction or another, that they, they have constraints.

   8. JTDr Jean Twenge23:11

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson23:11

      They, they don't have unlimited degrees of freedom, which in a meritocratic society is something that kind of feels uncomfortable, you know. You want to be able to be anything that you c- that you can be and you want to be able... You don't wanna feel like people are starting off on different footings, especially with conversations about equity and equality. But this is one of those scenarios where you actually think, "Well, fuck. The fact that there's only 50% that you have control over with your depression and anxiety in an environment that might be engendering more of that is actually almost a prophylactic." It's kind of almost protective-

   10. JTDr Jean Twenge23:43

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson23:43

       ... in this way. If you had control over 100%, this would allow the environment to s- rag you around however much it wanted.

   12. JTDr Jean Twenge23:50

       Yeah. You know, I, I sometimes say this when I, when I give talks on this, that if new technology is the cause of this huge rise in teen depression, that might actually be good news because we might be able to do something about it. Because we cannot change the genetics we were born with. We can't change what happened to us in the past. It would be really hard to solve poverty or discrimination overnight-... but we can set some reasonable limits on technology and maybe solve, at least try to solve this problem, and we might actually have an impact.

   13. CWChris Williamson24:26

       What are some of your proposals for

6. 24:28 – 29:02

   Managing the Rise of Addictive Technology

   1. CWChris Williamson24:28

      how both people, users, parents, et cetera-

   2. JTDr Jean Twenge24:31

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson24:31

      ... should try and protect themselves and others from it?

   4. JTDr Jean Twenge24:35

      So there's two big things. So as individuals, one thing that we can do, no phones in the bedroom overnight.

   5. CWChris Williamson24:40

      Yes. We are from the same team, Gene. We are from the same team.

   6. JTDr Jean Twenge24:44

      Mm-hmm. Yep. And that, you know, parents hear that and they're like, "Oh, I can do that for my kids, but I don't know, I think I have to have it." I'm like, "Nope, it's for you too."

   7. CWChris Williamson24:51

      (laughs)

   8. JTDr Jean Twenge24:51

      And I mean, just, just so many studies from sleep labs, we, we know this, that you're going to get a better night's sleep. But most people have their phone on their bedside table within arm's reach. Some people even sleep with it like it's a lover, right? So what people say next is, "Well, but I have to have my phone in my bedroom overnight because it's my alarm clock," to which I say, "I have some advice for you. Buy an alarm clock." (laughs)

   9. CWChris Williamson25:11

      Radio alarm clocks have been around for like 100 years. Come on.

   10. JTDr Jean Twenge25:15

       Yes, yes. You can buy the alarm clock on Amazon on your phone and then put your phone away-

   11. CWChris Williamson25:19

       (laughs)

   12. JTDr Jean Twenge25:20

       ... and get a good night's sleep. So, that's, that's the number one. That's what individuals can do. It's, the research is very strong on it and it's very straightforward and relatively simple, as opposed to say, you know, "How much time should I spend on a screen?" That's a lot harder. Um, so that's the first thing; and then, you know, as, um, as a society and individual countries and so on is to try to put some limits, particularly on social media, particularly for children and young teens. So for example, let's raise the minimum age for so- social media to 16 and actually do age verification to enforce that. Let's, let's get it out of that age of, you know, the 12 to 15 year olds which is already such a difficult time developmentally. Let's get that social media out of the, that equation.

   13. CWChris Williamson26:18

       Personally for me, even for the people that are skeptical about the link between the social media use and the current increases in teenage depression and anxiety, I don't understand, I, I, I'm struggling to steel my case for this makes teenagers' lives fundamentally better.

   14. JTDr Jean Twenge26:35

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson26:35

       Messaging apps, fine.

   16. JTDr Jean Twenge26:36

       Right.

   17. CWChris Williamson26:36

       Things like YouTube also seems to be fine for me, but when you're talking about TikTok, there is literally nothing coming out of that app which is expediting some young person's development in the world. It's not showing them things around the world which are going to expose them to new ideas. It is, it, it is the biggest waste of time that I can think. And I do understand that I am now sounding like the boomers that probably were criticizing whatever cartoon I was watching on Nickelodeon when I was 13 or 14 years old, but I, I, I, I struggle to see why this isn't a, uh, a policy. And also, when you think about the fact that these technologies still are very new, 10 years to be able to work out just what are the sort of effects, um, I don't know. I, I, I would be in support of a policy like that. You mentioned there that you are teaching in the classroom, so you have had experience interacting with 18 year old millennials and 18 year old zoomers.

   18. JTDr Jean Twenge27:36

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson27:37

       What are the differences that you have noticed personally?

   20. JTDr Jean Twenge27:41

       Yeah. Um, as you know, I'm a data person. I, I, I like relying on, on what the, what the generation says about themselves a lot more and that tends to be, you know, what I emphasize in the books. Um, but I have, I have been teaching undergraduates for, uh, quite a long time since I was a grad student, you know, myself in the, in the 90s and I've been a faculty member since 2001. So probably the biggest shifts are, um, with, with millennials a lot more self-confidence, which has advantages. They're more likely to raise their hand in the classroom. Also more likely to be entitled and say things like, "Um, I need to take the final late because I'm going to Vegas for my birthday." Really? What is your boss going to say in six months when, uh, you're like, "I can't do the big presentation because I'm going to Vegas for my birthday." So yeah. So that type of, that type of entitlement is much less common among Gen Z, um, but they, they also, you know, downside, are much more reluctant to talk in class. But they're very nice. They're very nice, they're very helpful, they're very sweet people. Um, they, you know, each, each generation has their, their strengths and weaknesses and I'm obviously generalizing here and it's obviously my one experience, but that does sort of fit the data that you see self-esteem, you know, go down between millennials and, and, uh, and Gen Z; and Gen Z is more likely to say that they really want to help others.

   21. CWChris Williamson29:01

       Mm.

7. 29:02 – 35:04

   Why Gen-Z Take Less Risks

   1. CWChris Williamson29:02

      Why are young people much more risk averse then?

   2. JTDr Jean Twenge29:05

      Mm-hmm. Yeah, so that, that's one of the things that really, that really surprised me in looking at, at, at Gen Z is they, they are. They're less likely to say they want to take risks. Um, and there's a big culture around safety; and not just physical safety, but what they call emotional safety. So it's a phrase I had never heard before I started, you know, talking to a lot of young adults; and they don't just want to be protected from physical dangers, but they often seem to want to be protected from bad experiences. And I can understand that impulse, but as many people have observed, that can veer into just never being, wanting to never be uncomfortable, which isn't realistic and especially as a young adult you're thinking especially, say, university student, that's often how you learn, and having difficult discussions is necessary sometimes when you're talking about complex topics.

   3. CWChris Williamson30:03

      What are some of the ways that this risk aversion has shown up in behavior?

   4. JTDr Jean Twenge30:07

      So Gen Z is less likely to get into physical fights with each other. They are less likely to, um, get into car accidents. Um, and then-There's, uh, around the kind of emotional so- uh, safety piece, I think that is why there has been the call for safe spaces, why there's been more of the disinvitations of speakers. Um, what, there's been much more of the idea of you can't say that, of we can't even have that, that person come to campus. Uh, you know, that words can hurt. So this really big focus on speech and language as harmful or even violent and that kind of, the kind of concept creep of, of, uh, words like trauma, um, and- and hurt and violence.

   5. CWChris Williamson31:01

      What's driving that?

   6. JTDr Jean Twenge31:04

      I think pa- part of it is, you know, safety was hugely emphasized with this generation when they were young and they did not rebel against that. They embraced it. So, you know, expect teenagers and young adults to rebel against the safety culture and they really didn't. You know, they- they took it seriously and there were, you know, lots of upsides to that- that safety culture. So I think it comes from that. And then it of course also comes from the way people are interacting with each other online because, you know, think about it, if you're 16 years old, um, today, you know, how are you more likely to be hurt? Um, often it's gonna be online. That's where people are gonna be nasty to each other, not to your face. Um, and that's partially just the way the medium works, be a little more aggressive, um, verbally when they're anonymous and when they're not seeing the look on the other person's face. And that's what online culture is and that's where so many teens are spending so much of their time now.

   7. CWChris Williamson32:04

      Why was there more of an emphasis on safety and less of a pushback? I- I- I can't work out... I remember being told from my parents, you know, we... as every young person is, you- they're concerned about your health and your wellbeing. What changed?

   8. JTDr Jean Twenge32:21

      Yeah. You know, it's- it's- it's- it's hard to say. I mean, it, I think there was, there clearly was a fundamental change though because, um, Gen Z teens fight with their parents less than especially Gen X teens did at the same age. So, you know, you'd think if parents were like safety, safety, safety, um, that they'd be rebelling against that by- by fighting about it and that just- just hasn't happened. And I think it- it- it- it's partially because they're, they are, just don't, they're- they're not as likely to want to say, you know, go and drive around or do crazy things because they can do crazy things online.

   9. CWChris Williamson33:01

      Mm. So I've got, uh, a- a bunch of interesting, uh, cottage industry, uh, obsessions at the moment and one of them has been trying to work out why young people are having less sex than ever before.

   10. JTDr Jean Twenge33:15

       Mm-hmm. Yep.

   11. CWChris Williamson33:16

       Um, socio-sexuality, uh, openness to new experiences, risk aversion. Um, all of this to me seems to be driven, uh, by partly the ripple effect, I think, which is what you mentioned earlier on. And it seems that there are just so many other things that are convenient and comfortable to do that get in the way. And the reason that I like this as an explanation is that it seems to cover so many of the different bases that each individual person can find in their online use their own targeted version of, uh, an anesthetic or an analgesic that will be, uh, allow them to not need to go out into the real world to face rejection from a partner, to deal with the discomfort of making up and breaking up, the risk of having sex. Uh, you know, we are in a post Me Too world. It's no surprise. When was Me Too? 2013? Something like that? So it kind of-

   12. JTDr Jean Twenge34:10

       2018.

   13. CWChris Williamson34:12

       Was it?

   14. JTDr Jean Twenge34:12

       Mm. Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson34:13

       Me Too was 2018? Oh my god. Uh, anyway, my point being we have... thi- these things have converged, right? They've all converged together and it seems like what a lot of people, especially guys that are the ones that will face the most rejection... Women also face their own, uh, massive security risks, uh, in the dating market, but-

   16. JTDr Jean Twenge34:35

       Yep.

   17. CWChris Williamson34:35

       ... I think, um, more frequent low level rejection would be something that is felt by men. And if you are in an environment and a society which is more risk averse which has p- perhaps cuddled and- and, uh, coaxed young people to not have to deal with these sorts of things, stepping out and facing the fear of approach anxiety and rejection and all of that, um, when you do have Tinder, online porn, video games, all of these things are potential distractions, what is

8. 35:04 – 39:00

   Young People’s Perspectives on Life

   1. CWChris Williamson35:04

      your view on the current approach of young people to relationships, family life, casual sex, long-term marriage, all of that?

   2. JTDr Jean Twenge35:14

      Yeah. I mean, you know, life isn't safe and sex and relationships, you know, don't feel safe either. I mean, d- described for- for young men and then for- for young women there's, you know, the fear of sexual assault. Um, there's also a lot of complaints from young women that, you know, young men watch so much porn they think that's how real life sex is going to be. You know, it's all- all of the, all of these things. Um, but it... you know, those- those certainly there are those fears. Previous generations kind of looked at those fears and said, "Well, that's the price of doing business." And I think a lot of Gen Z because they have these alternatives has said, "Well, forget it," you know, because I have, I have... there's all of these other things I- I can, I can do, you know, for- for a sexual outlet. Um, and I- I- I think that goes a long way toward, you know, explaining, you know, what's going on. Um, and not just as a sexual outlet. Just, you know, there's more things to do at 10:00 PM now. You know when there were three TV channels, it was all boring. Now you can binge watch almost whatever you want on Netflix or other platforms.

   3. CWChris Williamson36:14

      We're slowly distracting ourselves outside of human nature.

   4. JTDr Jean Twenge36:18

      I think that's- that's kind of true. You know, and we're really seeing this in the surveys with teens as well that the number of teens who say want to get married or at least want to have a long term partner has been... was steady since the 1970s until the transition between millennials and Gen Z.... about ten years ago. That's when it started to go down. Same thing for saying that they're likely to want to have children. So I think we're gonna see really big shifts in, in family life as Gen Z is of child-bearing age, that the birth rate might never come back up, and that probably the marriage rate is, may, may, uh, suffer as well.

   5. CWChris Williamson36:58

      That's another pet obsession of mine, the birth rate, uh, global birth rate declines, but this is global, right? You're looking at South Korea, naught point eight, Japan I think just above one, China right down in the bottom of the ones as well, uh, US is what, one point seven, one point eight, something like that?

   6. JTDr Jean Twenge37:14

      Yep.

   7. CWChris Williamson37:14

      Also not particularly good, the UK, Germany, absolutely ruined at the moment. Um, and yet, you know, everyone remembers the R naught number from COVID. You know, if it's above one, for every person there is more people giving more people, but if it's below one, the, uh, for birth rates, or below two point one-

   8. JTDr Jean Twenge37:31

      Actually, it's, it's two.

   9. CWChris Williamson37:32

      Yeah, two point one.

   10. JTDr Jean Twenge37:33

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson37:34

       But, uh, if you have the equivalent, which is there are fewer people having fewer people-

   12. JTDr Jean Twenge37:39

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson37:39

       ... which makes fewer people to have fewer people and so on and so forth.

   14. JTDr Jean Twenge37:42

       Yeah. Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson37:42

       Um, I, uh, I spoke to someone, um, that added another wing into this because I like that sort of demographic explanation, um, but their, uh, point was that females are, uh, very, um, easy to sort of have social contagion and the mim- uh, a mimetic nature to their behavior.

   16. JTDr Jean Twenge38:02

       Mm-hmm.

   17. CWChris Williamson38:02

       And if motherhood is less seen-

   18. JTDr Jean Twenge38:05

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson38:05

       ... it is less inculcated in themselves, so you almost get, in the same way that, uh, birth rate decline and demographic collapse occurs in this kind of spread out step-by-step way, you also get an equivalent here which is kind of like a psychological, uh, contagion too that spreads out. Well, there's fewer mothers around which means there are fewer mothers influencing young girls to become mothers, which means that there are few... da-da-da-da-da-da all the way down.

   20. JTDr Jean Twenge38:28

       Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, it builds on itself. Um, and, you know, it, uh, I think it's especially true, kind of guessing, that it's, it's that, um, we're not gonna see much of a turnaround because the birth rate really started to go down with millennials. Well, millennials as 18-year-olds said, "Yeah, I wanna have kids." Gen Z isn't even saying it at 18.

   21. CWChris Williamson38:49

       Have you seen the TikTok trend of girl with the list? Do you know what this is?

   22. JTDr Jean Twenge38:54

       No.

   23. CWChris Williamson38:55

       It's bad. So I wrote a, uh, a newsletter about this a couple of weeks ago.

   24. JTDr Jean Twenge38:58

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson38:59

       Um,

9. 39:00 – 45:16

   Why Women Are Having Less Kids

   1. CWChris Williamson39:00

      there was a girl who printed out on a piece of paper 350 reasons as to why she didn't want to have kids, and it ranged from everything from literally growing a parasite inside of you-

   2. JTDr Jean Twenge39:12

      (laughs)

   3. CWChris Williamson39:12

      ... to, uh, like, um, vaginal prolapse and all, all manner of obscure, uh, complications that can occur during, during childbirth. One of them was not being able to wear cute heels as much as I want, and it was, I think, it ended up... And she's printed it out so visually it's very, very kind of impressive and, and long. Um, but it, it showed to me just how much the individual that own freedom themselves-

   4. JTDr Jean Twenge39:42

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson39:43

      ... is a priority. I- I- it takes precedent that you are pedestalizing your own ability. There was a, a recent street interview that just went up yesterday using a ton of clips from my channel, um, which I really loved, and a bunch of, um, women mostly being asked, "Do you want to have kids? If not, why not?" Et cetera, et cetera. And the answers, I know that these street interviews get very heavily edited. I'm very... I'm always hesitant of using these-

   6. JTDr Jean Twenge40:07

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson40:07

      ... as, as, as evidence, but you don't put words in people's mouths. These people are saying it for themselves.

   8. JTDr Jean Twenge40:12

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CWChris Williamson40:12

      And it was stuff like, "Uh, I go to music festivals every weekend and, uh, if, if that happens that means that I can't... I don't have time for a kid. Um, I'm working on myself right now and I don't feel ready." "Oh, how old are you?" "I'm 38." And, you know, I... The evidence that I've seen from a, a meta-analysis from Professor Rinske Dyes says that eight out of ten women who don't have children after they break through their fertility window didn't intend to not have children. I wonder how that's going to change. That was 2011.

   10. JTDr Jean Twenge40:43

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson40:43

       So, you, you know, you're catching that tail end, I guess. Um, I really wonder whether that's going to change. I wonder whether the biological clock is basically going to stop ticking for Gen Z women in, at least psychologically, when they look back-

   12. JTDr Jean Twenge41:01

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson41:01

       ... and think, "Okay, I am now going to spend the remainder of my life without, without children." For the people that like to throw around, "Well, y- y- there's millions and millions of children that need to be adopted," in the USA there are 30 pairs of parents for every one child that is available for adoption.

   14. JTDr Jean Twenge41:19

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson41:19

       The number of hoops that you need to jump through is unbelievably high, so adoption isn't some sort of panacea to, to this. You know, the same as like why buy a new dog when you can adopt from a home? Like, it's just... The, the numbers aren't there to support this. But one of the other things that I don't understand is some of the claims that get made, and I think that this is indicative of both my generation and the generation coming after, which is that we hate to be wrong, because being wrong on the internet is, uh tantamount to ego destruction. Everybody's always been like this, but I think it's got even worse recently. If you ask people why it is that they don't want to have kids, they'll say that it's due to income.

   16. JTDr Jean Twenge42:03

       Right.

   17. CWChris Williamson42:04

       But I know that you have some statistics-

   18. JTDr Jean Twenge42:06

       Mm-hmm.

   19. CWChris Williamson42:06

       ... that show if the problem was income, even adjusted for living, even et cetera, et cetera, that's bollocks. So what, what is the story of income over the last couple of generations, uh, comparatively?

   20. JTDr Jean Twenge42:19

       Yeah. So first, you know, I, I have to mention there's been several recent polls of young adults who don't have children, um, and then asked those who said, "Yeah, I don't want children," "Why?" Personal freedom was almost always at, at or near the top of the list, so ex- exactly what, what you saw in these on the street interviews. Um, you know, income certainly comes up.... uh, but it's often, you know, not the primary thing. Um, so yeah, the story of, of income is interesting. Uh, millennial young adults actually make more money than Gen Xers and Boomers did at the same age. Uh, their wealth building, um, has also caught up. Uh, that wasn't true for, uh, a little bit there, but it's now caught up. So there is a little bit of truth to the income idea though, because most of those income gains have been from women. So you think about a heterosexual couple and, you know, maybe the woman makes a little less than the guy, but they're both making a good amount of money, which is why those numbers are so high, you know, for, for millennials now. Well, if they both keep working full time, then you have to pay for childcare. Childcare has always been expensive and it's even more expensive now. So there, there is, you know, a l- a little bit of truth to it that, that is, it, it's more challenging than the old days when, you know, the old bad days in a lot of ways, when women were not making hardly anything and so if they quit their job, the family wouldn't really lose that much income if she stayed home with the kids. Um, so there is that, but there's also some economists have looked at this that, um, they looked in the US at, at counties that had a lot of income growth. Well, you think if there was income then you should get a big increase in the birth rate in those counties that have the big economic growth. It actually went completely the other way. The birth rate went down in those counties that had the big economic growth, and they think it's because, y- young women were taking those career opportunities instead of having kids. So plus, there's a, if, if it took so much income to have children, why do people who are lower income have more kids than people with more income? And they do. So the income explanation, you know, people have priorities, they make choices, um, and yes, you know, certainly there are big problems with housing and childcare and so on, but it is not the only explanation. It's probably not the primary one.

   21. CWChris Williamson44:39

       I find that so fascinating. Uh, the, there was a study done recently looking at, uh, lottery winners, and if a man wins the lottery, it seems like he's more likely to get married. If a woman wins the lottery, she's more likely to get divorced.

   22. JTDr Jean Twenge44:51

       Mm.

   23. CWChris Williamson44:52

       And, uh, I, I think that the, (sighs) it seems like in a modern world where you can h- be afforded all of the different opportunities and experiences that can be placed in front of you, there are lots of things to do. And having children seems basic.

   24. JTDr Jean Twenge45:10

       Mm-hmm.

   25. CWChris Williamson45:10

       Just seems boring. It's like, "I, uh, I don't, I don't want to do this." Uh, talking about the, uh, gender pay gap and the changes there,

10. 45:16 – 49:09

    Millennials Feel Worse Off Financially

    1. CWChris Williamson45:16

       one of the, the insights I got from you was millennial women's incomes are much higher than the incomes of women of previous generations as a result of both higher wages and more hours worked. In 2021, millennial women aged 35 to 44 made roughly twice as much as Boomer women in 1980 and over 20% more than Gen X women in 2005. Women 25 to 34 made similar gains. Men's incomes have fallen since 1970. How is-

    2. JTDr Jean Twenge45:42

       They haven't fallen much. I mean, that's the, that's the way it balances out. Women's incomes have just gone way up. Men's incomes have down- gone down by a little bit and you average it out, and what you get is pretty solid incomes.

    3. CWChris Williamson45:54

       Why do millennials still feel poor then?

    4. JTDr Jean Twenge45:56

       Mm-hmm. I think, I think there's a bunch of reasons. One is what we just described, that in heterosexual couples, you're gonna get that challenge of, okay, is somebody gonna quit or go part time, or are we gonna pay for the expense of childcare? I think that's one, one reason. Um, another reason that's often mentioned is housing. Okay, but housing is so much more. Well, those income statistics that I've been talking about correct for inflation, and housing is one of the main pieces of that inflation calculation. Plus, if you look at the data, at least up to 2020, afterward got even harder, but up to 2020, millennials' home ownership rate was very similar to Gen Xers and Boomers at the same age. It was less, but it was less by a couple of percentage points. It, it really wasn't as much. And, and given that more went to, more millennials went to college, that makes sense that in that 26 to 39 group, that you might have a little bit of, of, of tapering off. But it's really small. You know, you'd think given the way people talk about it online that it would be, you know, the home ownership rate would be like half in millennials compared to boomers, and it's not. So I think that, you know, that explanation falls apart a little bit. Um, I think a lot of it is the social comparison that people do online that, you know, it, who goes on Twitter and says, "My income is great, and my generation is doing awesome"? That's not the norm. It's just not the way people, you know, discuss these things online, and the same thing with news articles. You know, it's so often this, you know, boomers were the ones who got, are all successful, which isn't true either. You know, and then they pull- they pulled up the ladder after they climbed up it so the millennials couldn't go up. I mean, that gets clicks. Uh, so I, I, I, I think, I think there is this, this again, this toxicity and this kind of negativity, you know, that have, have driven a lot of it. And, and I think partially it also got stuck because, you know, d- Great Recession times, millennials were really pummeled by that. That is absolutely true. It's just that they roared back really well, um, say between about 2011 and 2019 in particular, but even during the pandemic, those incomes were, were, were doing very well for, for people in that millennial age range.

    5. CWChris Williamson48:07

       Even if it's not as well as their people they follow with blue ticks on Instagram are, are showing.

    6. JTDr Jean Twenge48:13

       Mm-hmm.

    7. CWChris Williamson48:14

       One of the really interesting dynamics that I've just considered there is if women are the primary breadwinner in the household and on average, uh, overall household, uh, earnings are looking pretty good, but the woman needs to take time off work...... in order to raise the kid, you are taking a, a larger hit. A larger-

    8. JTDr Jean Twenge48:35

       That's right.

    9. CWChris Williamson48:35

       ... proportion of the overall household income is being-

    10. JTDr Jean Twenge48:37

        Exactly.

    11. CWChris Williamson48:38

        ... cut by that.

    12. JTDr Jean Twenge48:38

        That's right. Yeah, and I, I think, I think that, that's one of the big dilemmas. Um, and it, you know, it's also something to think about, you know, in, in, in terms of s- of, uh, of the birth rate because even though, like, you know, you and I are staying on the same page, a lot of this is around personal freedom, there is an economic component and that's what the economic component is. It, it's the challenge of childcare. So, um, you know, if you're gonna concentrate policy, maybe that's where the policy should be, around childcare.

    13. CWChris Williamson49:05

        What's happening in education? Mm, uh, college degrees and the high school

11. 49:09 – 1:03:24

    The Change in Education & Employment of Young People

    1. CWChris Williamson49:09

       graduates lumped together. What's happening?

    2. JTDr Jean Twenge49:13

       Uh, you mean in terms of income?

    3. CWChris Williamson49:15

       No, just in terms of people completing college degrees, people completing high school.

    4. JTDr Jean Twenge49:18

       Mm. Yeah. It's r- it's really, really amazing. I think we forget that it was really only a few generations ago, say Greatest Generation born in the early 20th century, where it wasn't even really the norm to complete high school. Many of them didn't. That was very, very common. And then very few went to college. So with the Silent Generation, uh, those were 1925 to 1945, it started to become much more common to finish high school and go to college and then that kept growing and it really, really, um, came to fruition with Millennials who are the most college, um, educated, um, o- of the generations. That's probably why their incomes are higher, by the way, uh, because they, more of them did, you know, get that college degree. So, um, you know, that's t- just a- a really huge change that, that people forget about, about how large that has been.

    5. CWChris Williamson50:14

       What about the, uh, didn't, didn't I see something that the number of people completing high school has dropped recently? Aren't there are more high school dropout, people that aren't getting high school diplomas?

    6. JTDr Jean Twenge50:28

       Not that I know of. I mean, i- i- it... Now, it's possible that there were some weird things going on in the pandemic.

    7. CWChris Williamson50:33

       Yeah.

    8. JTDr Jean Twenge50:33

       That, that might be what you're, what you're thinking of.

    9. CWChris Williamson50:35

       Mm-hmm.

    10. JTDr Jean Twenge50:35

        But at least up to that point, it had been absolutely in the other direction, that dropping out of, um, high school, uh, w- was a lot less common for say Gen Z versus, uh, Gen Xers in the 90s, that, you know, the high school completion rates used to hover, you know, in the, in the 80s and, and now they're well into the, the upper 90s.

    11. CWChris Williamson50:57

        Yeah. Th- one of the interesting stats I learned from Richard Reeves last year with his book Of Boys And Men was that seven times more males than females dropped out of college during COVID. And, you know, you've got this massive retreat, this huge imbalance. It's gonna be two to one females to males completing a four-year US college degree by 2030. That's going to worsen the earning potential down the line, that's going to worsen their, um, uh, imbalance within the home in terms of who's contributing income, which is going to make having children even more of a burden in terms of the lost income from the female. Uh, y- yeah, it's, uh, a perfect storm.

    12. JTDr Jean Twenge51:34

        It is. And, you know, maybe there will be more men who are the stay-at-home parent. That's, uh, already happened. But, you know, is, uh, is it ever gonna be 50/50? A lot of people have their doubts.

    13. CWChris Williamson51:46

        Yeah. I think... Look, there is... People can be what they want. There are ways to have unconventional household setups, uh, that, that will work out fantastically. But on average, I think that women's attraction is going to wane if they have a man that isn't contributing in the protector-provider role that typically that's what happens. This is more than just cultural archetypes, as far as I can see. This is genetic predisposition. You know, like, status accounts for an awful lot, mate value isn't something that we just make up. It's mediated through culture, for sure-

    14. JTDr Jean Twenge52:21

        Mm-hmm.

    15. CWChris Williamson52:22

        ... but it is rooted in biology, right? And, and these things can be bent a g- maybe even a good amount, but they can't be broken. And I do think that there are some challenges there. So what about changes to approaches in career, uh, the workplace, y- younger employees? Why are they different? How are they different?

    16. JTDr Jean Twenge52:42

        Yeah. So, you know, the workplace changed a lot, of course, you know, with, um, especially with virtual work. Um, that's starting to shift, you know, post-pandemic. But, you know, I think the, the most interesting changes are, are with Gen Z, the, by my calculations, the oldest of Gen Z are 28. So they're not just, uh, new young employees at accounting firms, they're now the new young employees at the law firms and, you know, in medicine and in the faculty and, you know, lot- lots of other professions. So, you know, I... The most important thing is the most simple, do not assume your young employees are Millennials anymore. They're not and they're... And Gen Z is fundamentally different, you know, from, from Millennials. But, you know, I think we're gonna see, I think, a lot of the things that have come up on college campuses are already in the workplace, are gonna be even more so. And I think that's what we're already grappling with and we'll continue to do so in the, in the next few years of, um, are there gonna be demands for safe spaces? Is, um, everyone going to need to state their pronouns, not just in their email signature, but verbally? You know, and I, and I don't think these things are all bad. There's some very, you know, good practical things to, to do both of, of those. But a lot of older generations are gonna have some, you know-

    17. CWChris Williamson54:03

        Wrestle.

    18. JTDr Jean Twenge54:03

        Yeah. Wrestle with them. I think that's a good, that's a good verb. Um, and then th- there's, there's, there's other things, you know, we've already really seen. So I think one example I use in the book is just how it has become so common for university presidents to release statements about political events. And I think that's also now why young employees are de- demanding or asking that CEOs release statements about a politic- political event. And CEOs are kind of reluctant to do that, they don't wanna alienate half of their customers.... but then their young employees are demanding it, and they're caught between a rock and a hard place. I, I don't think that's gonna go away.

    19. CWChris Williamson54:44

        Oh, so the personal is political, but the professional is also political now as well?

    20. JTDr Jean Twenge54:48

        Exactly.

    21. CWChris Williamson54:49

        Very interesting. Yeah, have you seen, uh ... Maybe getting out of my skis here. Have you seen the newest season of South Park?

    22. JTDr Jean Twenge54:58

        I have not.

    23. CWChris Williamson54:58

        There is one episode that I implore you to watch, and-

    24. JTDr Jean Twenge55:02

        Okay.

    25. CWChris Williamson55:02

        ... in this episode, Butters gets a job at an ice cream parlor, and Cartman is jealous because Butters has a job and it means that he's earning money. So, Cartman decides that he'll ask Butters to get him a job. Butters pulls the favor, and Cartman starts working there. Within the first couple of minutes, Cartman says that he needs to take a mental health break. Then, he works from home for the remainder of the day because it's Mindful Mondays, and then it's, uh, like, Work From Home Wednesdays, and it's Finish Early Friday, and, like, he keeps on needing to take a mental health day and he's being overworked. Then, he tries to get Butters to work in a co-op thing with him because he says, "Why are we working for this owner? He doesn't even do anything." Meanwhile, the joke is obviously that Cartman hasn't done anything at all or contributed to it.

    26. JTDr Jean Twenge55:46

        Right.

    27. CWChris Williamson55:46

        Um, and yeah, I ... It really hits the nail on the head, I think, of, of one of the stereotypes that we have about this industry or this, this sort of current generation of people who, in industry, don't want to work particularly hard. But then, there also seems to be some truth in this, the fact that there are, uh, increasing rates of, of mental health problems. Um, ha- have you seen any data to do with, uh, sick days, days taken on leave for mental health absence, stuff like that?

    28. JTDr Jean Twenge56:16

        Yeah, I haven't seen that, but there, there are, um, some interesting questions, uh, you know, around this for, you know, one of the, the big surveys, um, in the US of, of 18-year-olds. It's a great, great, you know, place to, to sample, you know. They're, they're gonna get into university or enter the, enter the workplace. Uh, and so things around work ethic, like, "Are you willing to work overtime," is a great example. So, that one had actually been going up. So, it had been on the decline for quite a long time with, you know, from Boomers to Gen Xers to Millennials, younger people saying, "Uh, that's not what I wanna do. I don't really wanna work that hard, and I don't wanna work overtime." And then, about 10 or 15 years ago, it actually started to come up, you know, with, with Gen Z started to be more likely to say, "Yeah, you know, I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to work hard." And then in 2021, it went (imitates crash) , just like a huge, big decline. And who knows? Maybe that's a blip. I don't know. But that was also, you know, around the time of the idea of the quiet quitting and The Great Resignation. And yeah, some of, some of these ideas of, somewhat reali- unrealistic ideas of, you know, "Why, why should we have to work for a living? I don't know. I don't think I get this." Um, yeah, that's kinda how it works.

    29. CWChris Williamson57:28

        Are you familiar with Nicholas Eberstadt? Do you know him?

    30. JTDr Jean Twenge57:31

        Um, I recognize the name.
12. 1:03:24 – 1:15:35

    How Political Stances Have Changed in Youth

    1. CWChris Williamson1:03:24

       but is a massive contributor is political stances. How has that wobbled and waned over the last few generations?

    2. JTDr Jean Twenge1:03:33

       Yeah. So, you know, the, really the biggest overall change is just a lot more polarization. And you see this among young adults, it's either more identify on the extreme left or the extreme right. And, uh, that there's, in the, in the US you also get much more of an association over the last few decades, um, with being liberal and being Democratic and being conservative and being Republican. People forget that that used to not be, um, as, as stark. Uh, and it's just become this environment where it's not just, "Oh, I disagree with that other party, but I hate them." And not only, "I disagree with that other person, but I hate the person," and we're there. Um, it's, some people refer to it, to it as affective polarization, affect meaning emotion, and that's what's really stunning. There's a, a big survey that, that's, uh, been done for decades and decades, and it asked people to say, you know, on a temperature scale, you know, how warm do you feel towards cer- certain groups? And Democrats about Republicans or Republicans about Democrats is in frostbite territory now, and it used to be maybe, oh, mid-50s, and now it's like 20. Um, so there's just a, you know, a lot of negative feeling. It's almost like it's replaced religion or, you know, even more, um, you know, so- something else where it's just like that's the other. That's how we're dividing each other now, is, is it's based on politics.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:05:06

       I saw a study that showed one third of Democrats worry about their son or daughter marrying a Republican.

    4. JTDr Jean Twenge1:05:12

       Mm-hmm. Right.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:05:13

       Exact same thing.

    6. JTDr Jean Twenge1:05:14

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:05:15

       Is it true... So you mentioned earlier on, uh, Gen Z from college coming into the workplace and needing their CEO or president to comment on current cultural events. Something tells me that if you are conservative or Republican, this is not going to be the sort of thing that you're pushing. Therefore, does this suggest that Gen Z is more liberal, that they are voting more progressively?

    8. JTDr Jean Twenge1:05:40

       Well, young, the younger generations tend to be more progressive and older people tend to be more conservative. It's, the, the basic idea is that when you're young, you see the problems in the world and you want things to be changed, then you get to a certain age in midlife where you say, "Hey, you know, there's, actually a lot of these things have changed. Uh, that's enough. We can stop there." You know, so I think that, that's part, part of the dynamic there. But, you know, people do sometimes stereotype and think, you know, all of Gen Z is, you know, liberal and Democrat, and that's not the case. You know, there's a good third of them who voted for Trump, but even the conservatives like Trump a little bit less. So, there's, there's some generational break there. It's actually probably one of the reasons why he lost in, in, in 2020 was that he lost the support of more young conservatives.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:06:37

       Is there evidence to suggest that this aging out of liberalism is happening more slowly or less?

    10. JTDr Jean Twenge1:06:45

        You know, there, there's, there's not and it's, you know, it, it, the, the, the one thing we, we've kind of learned in the last five years or so is that a really cool paper that, uh, made the case that your politics are at least somewhat shaped by who was president when you were a teen or a, or young adult and whether that president was popular. So the Millennials who were young when Obama was president, a relatively popular president, will probably, this, this data suggests, tilt more Liberal and Democrat their whole lives. So then if you look at that for Gen Z, it's a little bit more... It's a little harder to predict, uh, because neither Trump nor Biden has had particularly great, you know, popularity ratings. So it's a little harder to see, you know, what, what direction they're gonna go in the future. And it i- it is interesting because although they are a very progressive generation across a lot of social issues, they also, in terms of their behaviors, are almost more conservative in an, in an odd way. Like, they're less likely to drink alcohol and have sex, for example. But their views on a lo- on, uh, most issues are pretty progressive on average.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:08:01

        Why are these young people so much more negative about their country?

    12. JTDr Jean Twenge1:08:06

        I think that's one of the biggest questions that we have to try to answer, uh, and I think one possible explanation, you know, obviously there's a lot of toxicity online and it has a lot to do with it, but I think kind of the other piece of the puzzle that has not been discussed as much is that this is another, um, downstream effect of more depression and mental health issues. Because depression isn't just about feeling, it's not just about emotions, it's also about how you think and how you think about things. And by definition, depression means you view the world in a negative light, so that's why there's more, that's why there's more pessimism, that's why there's the, the view of, you know, everything is unfair and thus we need to change things. And then the one that really knocked me out of my chair was the poll, um, of, um, US adults that said, "Do you believe that the founders of the United States are better described as heroes or as villains?" And four out of ten Gen Z said villains. There's only one out of ten for Boomers. And that's interesting because that's, that's 2,250 years in the past, you know, it's not even an assessment of the current moment, and there's that very, very strong negativity. It's, you know, and the other items too, you know, things, whether things are fair or whether, you know, they should be changed, young adults are much more likely to say, "Yeah, you know, we need to tear the whole thing down and start over." And negativity isn't, isn't always bad. You know, we don't want people to have rose-colored glasses and see everything as positive, but if that negativity is combined with hopelessness and nihilism, which it seems to be, that's not good for a stable democracy.

    13. CWChris Williamson1:10:00

        This is probably my least favorite part about the internet. The ma- I have many things that I like about the internet-

    14. JTDr Jean Twenge1:10:07

        (laughs) Sure.

    15. CWChris Williamson1:10:07

        ... despite the fact that we've been very critical today. Um, my least favorite part, and i- i- it took, um, a conversation with my friend, Michael Malice, to actually give a word to it, and it's so funny. You know, you, you spend all of this time reflecting on things and introspecting and, "Oh, I'm gonna link all of these different concepts together," and then you realize it's something that you thought was a, a, a unbelievably difficult web to put together already existed and it had a word that you'd learned since you were age 12 or something, and it was cynicism. I realized that the culture that I hate the most on the internet is cynicism, that everything sucks, that everything's rubbish, that it's not going to get better, that the people who believe that it can get better, that th- are the ones that are actually the problem, they're the ones that are d- delusional or conspiratorial or have been silver-spooned or coddled or been given unfair advantages in life. And I realized that that-

    16. JTDr Jean Twenge1:10:57

        Mm-hmm.

    17. CWChris Williamson1:10:58

        ... as far as I was concerned was the worst trend that I was seeing online. Um, so outside of the, uh, distaste and negativity for country, uh, i- is there ev- evidence that shows that there's a, a, how could you say, like generalized cynicism disorder that this is just being spread out elsewhere too?

    18. JTDr Jean Twenge1:11:16

        Yeah. Yeah, so there's this thing that you're describing on the internet, I call it the hellscape narrative, you know, and that's, that's what you see, um, and yeah, things are worse than ever. Are they really? I don't know. Uh, and, yeah, in the survey data, 18 year olds are more likely to say, "I don't have any hope for the world. I can't have hope given the, given the situation." Um, i- l- locus of control become, has become more external meaning, you know, "I don't think there's anything I can really do about it," you know, "Things are so unfair." All of those have, have, have, have spiked in the last 10 years.

    19. CWChris Williamson1:11:49

        Mm. So, uh, uh, drawing this back to my current pet obsession of, of the mating crisis, um, I see a lot of people doing that externalizing in terms of locus of control that it's because of whatever that's out there. "All men are going, uh, uh, are potential rapists and assaulters." Or, "All women are too full of themselves." Or whatever it might be.

    20. JTDr Jean Twenge1:12:11

        Mm-hmm.

    21. CWChris Williamson1:12:11

        Um, another sort of interesting, I guess, consideration there too is the cynicism and the negativity that we see amongst young people is... It, it, it's almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy-

    22. JTDr Jean Twenge1:12:31

        Mm-hmm.

    23. CWChris Williamson1:12:31

        ... that if they don't try to step outside of whatever it is that they're doing, they give themselves proof that the world is like that because if, if you don't go and do something to change it, then w- what do you think's, uh, w- what's going to happen? The world isn't just going to deliver you change, especially not to just your life. Um, and again, with the climate change thing, something we were talking about earlier on but w- with regards to having kids, it's almost like some of the social change movements that are happening are used as excuses...... you know, how many, how many, uh, Gen Z'ers genuinely understand anthropological impact on climate? Like, d- d- really, really understand what's going on? It, it is incontrovertible that humans have an impact on the climate, but let's talk about, you know, exactly how much of a difference is it going to be and downstream, et cetera, et cetera. I see so much, because I talk about the sort of declining birth rates a good bit, people saying, "Wh- i- i- it is fully unethical to bring a child into this world-"

    24. JTDr Jean Twenge1:13:29

        Mm-hmm.

    25. CWChris Williamson1:13:29

        "... when it's already overpopulated and we're destroying the planet." Like, you do understand-

    26. JTDr Jean Twenge1:13:33

        Mm-hmm.

    27. CWChris Williamson1:13:33

        ... that's like just straight up antinatalism.

    28. JTDr Jean Twenge1:13:36

        Mm-hmm.

    29. CWChris Williamson1:13:36

        Right? Like, it, it's just a, just the most antinatalist position that you can hold. And do you really think, like, if you think that living on a planet that's got too many people, which we don't at the moment, is bad, wait until you live on one that's got too few. Wait until you live on one that is trying to desperately hold onto an embedded growth obligation to continue the GDP to grow when the population is dropping by 10%, 20%, 30% per generation. Wait until that happens. And I'm like fucking screaming this from the rooftops saying, "Look, how can you be focused on climate change, something that may slightly inconvenience your great, great, great, great, great-granddaughter's life if, that isn't going to be born if you don't have any kids." And within the space of 50 years, within the space of 30 years, China's population is going to be halved. They're gonna go from 1.2 billion to 650 million people. Korea is having a 96% extinction rate over the next 100 years.

    30. JTDr Jean Twenge1:14:36

        Hmm.
13. 1:15:35 – 1:18:50

    Is There Hope for Gen-Z?

    1. CWChris Williamson1:15:35

       Um, what, what ways could you be wrong about this stuff? Have you considered that?

    2. JTDr Jean Twenge1:15:42

       Yeah, I mean, a- absolutely. Um, you know, what, what has really been the kind of s- lifesaver of, of that my whole career has been, I've tried to draw from these, you know, big nationally representative datasets often of young people. And that, you know, you're listening to what the generation says about itself, not what older people's observations or some tiny pocket of people are doing. That helps a lot. But things can change. It's very hard to predict the future. That's just the way it is. So, you know, does this mean that Gen Z is gonna be negative their whole lives? Well, I hope not. And I think there, there are some, some positive signs. I mean, one thing is that voter participation is way up among young adults. So if you are hopeless and negative, that's pretty bad. If you're negative but then you vote and try to change the things that you think need to be changed, that's a better outcome. So that's where I do have, have some hope is that political activism i- in this generation. Um, where I do have, you know, a little bit of fear and bias maybe also just given my, my, uh, life stage is, um, I would prefer that we didn't completely overthrow the government, burn it all down, and start over. And I think there's a, there's, there are a good number of, um, Gen Z who do want to do that.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:17:12

       What are your predictions for the future? We've got, you call them the, the polar generation or generation polar or-

    4. JTDr Jean Twenge1:17:19

       Mm-hmm.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:17:19

       ... gen A, generation alpha-

    6. JTDr Jean Twenge1:17:20

       Mm-hmm.

    7. CWChris Williamson1:17:20

       ... coming through. What do you think is happening next?

    8. JTDr Jean Twenge1:17:23

       Yeah. So we don't have that much data yet on, on this generation, but this, this is those born 2013 and later. So yeah, a lot of people call them gen alpha. Um, I call them polaris after melting polar ice caps and political polarization, so two things, you know, that will be talked about and perhaps have an impact on them. Um, y- you know, w- with the, the little data that we do have, um, is troubling. A lot of childhood obesity, um, a lot less, uh, playing outside and exercise, probably because of screens. So hopefully we can turn that around. Um, I'm, I'm, I'm less pessimistic about the fact that, you know, a lot of them went through the pandemic when they were young because a lot of generations, say the silent generation went through the Great Depression and World War II when they were young and they turned out pretty well. So generations can grow from adversity. What I'm afraid of is if they get stuck with problems that they can't get rid of as children and teens. And I have the same worry about Gen Z.

    9. CWChris Williamson1:18:26

       Especially if there is something, uh, pathological perhaps about seeing challenge as a negative as opposed to-

    10. JTDr Jean Twenge1:18:37

        Mm-hmm.

    11. CWChris Williamson1:18:37

        ... something which is to be overcome, you can only really grow from it if you decide to go through it as opposed to be completely split in half by it. Uh, Jean, this is really fascinating. I, I, I really appreciate your work. Uh, where

14. 1:18:50 – 1:19:45

    Where to Find Dr Twenge

    1. CWChris Williamson1:18:50

       should people go if they wanna keep up to date with the things that you do, where should they head?

    2. JTDr Jean Twenge1:18:54

       Yeah. You know, so the, the new book, Generations, about all six living American generations. And, uh, just tons of, tons of data and conclusions in there. So my, my website is jeantwenge.com, so J-E, J-E-A-N T-W-E-N-G-E... See, after 90 minutes I can't even spell my own name. Um, but that has stuff about the books. I also have, uh, frequently asked questions about Generations, um, stuff about speaking engagements and all the good stuff.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:19:23

       Jean, I really appreciate you. Thank you.

    4. JTDr Jean Twenge1:19:25

       Thank you very much. (instrumental music plays)

    5. CWChris Williamson1:19:26

       What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:19:46