Stefan Kelly is a Senior Behavioural Analyst at Canvas8. Stefan has a background in behavioural science and psychology, and has spent most of his career researching how people form beliefs and make decisions. Now he spends most of his time trying to understand the interactions between identity, uncertainty and culture. After work, he's likely reading old psychiatry blogs, scouring 2nd hand clothing apps, or failing to get Arsenal tickets.

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In today’s information-saturated world, narratives and sweeping generalisations about generations are everywhere. They are often presented in catchy headlines and engaging soundbites, and are pervasive – serving to frame our understanding of vast cohorts of individuals that just so happen to have been born in the same time frames as whole groups of similar people. They tell us who these generations are, what they value, and how they interact with the world.

Gen Yers are often described as ‘entitled’, while Gen Zers are frequently dubbed the ‘social media generation’ – but how accurate are these monolithic labels? And how can we sift through the noise to discern the true trends and shifts that are shaping these generations? Delving into the fascinating subject of generational differences and their impact on society, Jean M. Twenge, Ph.D is an esteemed American psychologist and professor of psychology at San Diego State University. Twenge has become a pivotal voice in explaining the distinctions that define different generations, from the Silents to Gen Z.

Twenge has pioneered research focusing on work behaviour, work-life balance, and happiness across generational divides. Her work not only dissects demographic group behaviours and attitudes, but it also uncovers how these differences significantly impact our society, economy, and personal lives. With her ability to delve into and understand patterns of behaviour and shifts in attitude, Dr. Twenge offers us a lens through which we can better understand the changes that are shaping our world today.

Her incisive analysis is both highly accessible and thought-provoking. She is the author of several critically acclaimed books, including 

Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – and More Miserable Than Ever Before

iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood – and What That Means for the Rest of Us

 (2017). Through her books, Twenge has succeeded in captivating a wide audience, generating discussions that extend beyond academia and into our everyday conversations. Her most recent book, 

 (2023), is her most comprehensive yet, drawing across decades of research to identify the key differences between the generations of the last one hundred years.

Canvas8 took this opportunity to speak with Twenge, given the unprecedented societal shifts we are witnessing. The rise of digital technology, remote work, the effects of the pandemic, and evolving societal norms are all factors affecting generational behaviours. Twenge’s understanding of generational change and its impact on societal and workplace dynamics makes her insights particularly relevant to these uncertain times. Her pioneering concept of the ‘iGen’ generation – those born in the mid-1990s who have grown up with social media and smartphones at their fingertips – provides an invaluable framework for understanding how the younger generation is shaping and responding to the world today.

What is your overall theory of how technology underlies generational change?

The traditional theory of generations proposes that generations are shaped by major events that happen in the country or the world and the age at which one experiences these events. This includes wars, pandemics, terrorist attacks, and more. While these events do have an impact, they do not have as significant an influence as changes in technology. The alterations in technology, which include not only smartphones and social media but also advancements like air conditioning, washing machines, and improved medical care, have drastically transformed our living conditions. These technological changes have made life today vastly different and generally more convenient than it was 200, 50, or even 20 years ago.

Technology not only brings direct effects but also indirect ones. For instance, it fosters individualism. With chores and survival tasks becoming easier and less time-consuming, individuals have more time to focus on personal pursuits and independence. Additionally, technology enhances medical care, which in turn prolongs lifespan, leading to a phenomenon known as the ‘slow life strategy’. This means that the pace of development has slowed down at every stage of the life cycle. Nowadays, children are less independent, teenagers are less likely to engage in activities like driving, drinking, or working, and young adults take longer to marry and settle into careers. Middle-aged individuals, in contrast, appear and feel younger than their parents and grandparents did at the same age.

Therefore, if technology, individualism, and the slow life strategy are the major driving forces behind generational change, it implies that these changes are likely to be similar in most Western or industrialised countries. Of course, variations will exist based on the specific country, culture, and historical events. However, these global trends are expected to manifest similarly in regions with distinct cultural differences, like Asia.

A lot of other psychological research tends to describe people as having common behavioural features and motivations, so what do you say to people who hold scepticism over studying generational differences at all?

My background is in personality and social psychology, fields that often delve into topics that are relatively universal. However, personality psychology also investigates the idea that individuals differ in terms of their traits and behaviours. Both universality and individual differences hold true. There are certain issues, challenges, and goals that humans have grappled with throughout history. People search for purpose in life and they need relationships. But the ways in which they find purpose and how they navigate relationships are different now than they used to be.

What intrigues me about these debates is the criticism that the cut-offs are arbitrary, or questioning why we group people in a certain way. But this criticism isn’t unique to the study of generations; it’s relevant to any study of group differences. For instance, we label people aged 13 to 19 as teenagers and analyse them based on that categorisation. However, you could argue that a 13-year-old is significantly different from a 19-year-old, just as someone born in the 1980s is different from someone born in 1991, even though we group them both as Gen Yers.

Admittedly, some of these cut-offs are arbitrary, and sometimes they’re overly broad. Yet we continue to use them because they aid our understanding of differences.

In your book you analyse the generations chronologically, starting with the silent generation. What were the main things they encountered in their life that made them different?

The silent generation were the leaders of the civil rights movement and the feminist movement. Those are things often associated with boomers. But it was actually the silence who really brought those to the forefront. It means their name is a little bit of a misnomer. They were far from silent. They got that name in the Postwar era because they married young, had kids young, and started their careers young. They are conventional in some ways, but their leaders kind of pushed the envelope in a lot of different movements, especially around equality, around race, gender, and sexual orientation.

The Boomers followed them, and as you mention we often conflate the two. What is the key difference with the Boomers?

The Boomers are those born in 1946 to 1964. They really lived the changes that the silent generation started. The silent generation often got the laws changed and then Boomers lived their lives in this new world. Boomers also got the laws changed. Boomers were the ones who changed hearts and minds in many ways. Sometimes just by example, and then the way that they were living their lives. They were really living when all of these things were really starting to change.

Another thing that characterises Boomers is individualism which goes hand in hand with those equality movements. They were really exploring more focus on the self and less focus on social rules. If you think about the revolution of the late 1960s, that's really the unifying theme.

For Gen Xers, born 1965-1981, what were the main technological changes they saw that previous generations didn’t have to adapt to as much?

For Gen Xers, it was really straddling two different worlds. At first in childhood, it was television just like it was for Boomers. TV became even more central for Gen X. But as Gen Xers grew into adolescence and young adulthood, they were the first digital generation. The last analog childhood, the first in young adulthood to start to see the internet and all of these things, and then of course, that came to even more fruition with Gen Yers who grew up with those technologies even more. Gen Xers are kind of in the middle, straddling both worlds.

Finally, Gen Yers and Zers are the two most spoken about generations to those trying to understand behaviour in the modern world. What would you say are the clearest differences between the two of them?

The really big difference between Gen Yers and Zers, at least if you’re comparing them when they were adolescents or young adults, is optimism versus pessimism. Gen Yers as young people were very optimistic, very self-confident and then that completely turned around in the transition to Gen Z. Gen Zers are much less confident, much less optimistic, veering even toward pessimism. Mental health statistics, notably teen depression, started to increase during the transition from Gen Yers to Gen Zers and it has only worsened since then. This trend follows suit for other indicators like self-harm and anxiety.

Interestingly, for a while, Gen Yers displayed significant optimism and better mental health, especially as they transitioned into adulthood. This was particularly notable in the first wave of Gen Yers, born in the early eighties. However, levels of depression have started to rise among younger Gen Yers as well. For those aged 26 to 34 over the past five to ten years, the trend initially began with Gen Z teens. A few years later, it affected Gen Z young adults and has now progressed up the age scale.

This trend is also starting to impact younger Gen Yers. Current increases in depression are about half the size of those seen in Gen Z, but they’re significant nonetheless. This suggests that the initial optimism of Gen Yers is starting to wane, which aligns with some of the disillusionment observed in work around Gen Yers.

Something that is said about Gen Zers a lot is that they like to match up their spending with their values, and support companies that support the same causes that they do. Do we see this empirically?

A little bit. One thing that really pops out with Gen Zers is that they are more likely to say they want to help others in difficulty as a life goal. They’re more likely to say they want a job where they can be directly helpful to others and that can contribute to society. So I think that speaks to the idea of brands and purpose and meaning in a different way. They do have empathy and helping as a core value. And I think that’s something important for employers to know and it does definitely apply when you’re thinking about what motivates them for purchases. That’s something they’re thinking about more than young people did ten or 15 years ago.

Don’t believe every narrative you see about Gen Z

I often see the narrative that Gen Zers are uniquely entrepreneurial. The data does not back that up. The big survey of 18-year-olds has asked, ‘How much do you want to own your own business?’ A big survey of university students has also asked about that, and it peaked with Gen X. So the idea that they all want to strike out on their own and own their own business is not very prominent. In fact, this generation is focused on protection, safety, and not taking risks. Safety is one of their core values, and many of them see being an entrepreneur as too risky, although not all. Furthermore, I often see a narrative around concern for the environment being unique, but again, it is not. The survey of 18-year-olds also shows that interest in taking action to help the environment peaked in the nineties among teens. It has gone up and down recently, but it’s not something that is unique to young people today.

Not all generational differences are easy to explain

Why young adult Gen Yers are depressed now is one of the things on the top of my list. Why was there a turn toward pessimism among a generation who was so positive and optimistic when they were young? And I think that it hasn’t shown up in the mental health statistics, but the pessimism has started to creep up the age scale. Why are people so pessimistic right now when objectively speaking, they probably shouldn’t be? I’ve seen polls about this, with people saying, ‘This is a terrible time right now’. I’m like, wait, is it really worse than three years ago in 2020 when we had no vaccine, no cures, nothing at the beginning of the pandemic? Is it really worse than the great recession? Is it really worse than the eighties when we were convinced the USSR was gonna drop the bomb at any moment and we’re all gonna die? I don’t know.

Gen Alpha may follow the trend of optimism toward pessimism set by the last two generations

I don’t think that is gonna improve significantly until we find some solution around our relationship with technology and social media in particular. Sure, there might be other forces that intervene and push things in a more positive direction. But one of our biggest challenges is to try to figure that out. There are clear solutions, especially for younger teens. Many have started to advocate for raising the minimum age for social media to 16 and actually enforcing it. That would help, at least protect that younger group. But it’s clear that we have a reckoning that needs to happen with our relationship with technology. This level of mental health issues is not sustainable.

 Gen Zers worldwide, the most populated generation

Jean Twenge emphasises that technological advancements play a crucial role in shaping generational behaviour, more significantly than world events

Twenge counters the narrative of Gen Zers’ entrepreneurial spirit and environmental concerns, arguing these traits peaked with previous generations

Trends in pessimism, initially observed in Gen Zers, have started affecting Gen Yers, reflecting significant challenges among the newer generations

Jean M. Twenge is a professor of psychology at San Diego State University. Her research explores generational differences in behaviour, attitudes, values, happiness, and mental health. She has published more than 150 scientific journal articles and six books, including the bestselling 

Global

United States

Citizenship

Psychologist Jean Twenge uncovers the real trends defining generations. Can we trust the labels and narratives surrounding Gen Yers and Zers? What technological developments have driven these differences, and how can we expect this to impact the next generation to come along?