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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

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iGen

By: Jean M. Twenge PhD PhD
Narrated by: Madeleine Maby
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About this listen

 “We’ve all been desperate to learn what heavy use of social media does to adolescents. Now, thanks to Twenge’s careful analysis, we know: It is making them lonely, anxious, and fragile—especially our girls. If you are a parent, teacher, or employer, you must read this fascinating book.”—Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation

Born after 1995, the smartphone generation grew up with cell phones, had an Instagram page before high school, and cannot remember a time before the Internet. They are iGen, and this essential book reveals how these teens and young adults differ from millennials and every other generation in their mental health, social behaviors, and attitudes toward politics and religion.

With generational divides wider than ever, parents, educators, and employers have an urgent need to understand today’s rising generation of teens and young adults.

Born in the mid-1990s up to the mid-2000s, iGen is the first generation to spend their entire adolescence in the age of the smartphone. With social media and texting replacing other activities, iGen spends less time with their friends in person—perhaps contributing to their unprecedented levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness.

But technology is not the only thing that makes iGen distinct from every generation before them; they are also different in how they spend their time, how they behave, and in their attitudes toward religion, sexuality, and politics. They socialize in completely new ways, reject once sacred social taboos, and want different things from their lives and careers. More than previous generations, they are obsessed with safety, focused on tolerance, and have no patience for inequality.

As this new group of young people grows into adulthood, we all need to understand them: friends and family need to look out for them; businesses must figure out how to recruit them and sell to them; colleges and universities must know how to educate and guide them. And members of iGen also need to understand themselves as they communicate with their elders and explain their views to their older peers. Because where iGen goes, so goes our nation—and the world.

*As seen in Time, USA TODAY, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and on CBS This Morning, BBC, PBS, CNN, and NPR* Anthropology History & Culture Sociology Technology & Society Technology Discrimination Social justice Socialism
All stars
Most relevant
Interesting content, worthwhile for any generation to read in order to better understand iGens. As an Australian reading it, most of it applied to Aus iGens too but some of it was purely for the American audience. Just really heavy on the data... Might be a better read in hardcopy... you can skip boring (albeit necessary) data but also highlight and annotate key points.

Might be better to read in hardcopy

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Many people confuse the culture of millennials and igeners, this book shows there are considerable cultural differences. Some of the findings have scary implications about how igeners seem to be scared of relationships and failure.

Challenges many myths

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a well researched, well presented and interesting look into the igen generation. Recommended for anyone who wants to understand the new world we live in and likely implications for the future. parents, grandparents, siblings, educators, governments, marketers and sellers will all benefit from this work.

insightful - highly recommended

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This is a very well-researched book but the constant bombardment of numbers, stats and facts makes it difficult to read or to retain much of the information presented. Would possibly be more accessible as a physical rather than audio book.

Too many numbers

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.