Book by Jean M. Twenge, PhD
I thoroughly enjoyed this book… at least until I got to the chapter about my own generation: millennials. Apparently we are narcissists and the one time Twenge quotes an Australian millennial about the housing market, she fails to do research into the Australian housing market and the fact that, while millennials in the USA can generally afford houses (at least at comparable percentages to other generations), there is a significant decline in the affordability of housing in Australia for millennials, Gen Z etc. and the up-coming generations (and this is statistically verifiable).
That said, this was the only mistake I was aware of in the book (probably because I’m Australian anyway, and was reading this book to understand American culture and shed some light on Aussie culture which follows similar trends, but certainly not always the same trends). I fully understand that this book is not about Australians per se.
The book is well researched, there’s no denying that. It is full of statistics on all the topics I personally wanted to read about: sexuality and religion in particular; views on racism, feminism, queer rights, and equality; trends around marriage, divorce, family, sex, fertility, babies and parenting; education, jobs and money; mental health; music and popular culture; and, of course, politics.
I loved Jean’s explanation that each generation has been influenced by technological advances and how technology has influenced the fast vs slow life strategy, and individualism. She has me convinced that these are the defining differences between generations at this point in history.
I won’t rehash statistics and trends in this book review, but rather implore you to read it if you want to learn more about your own generation, your parents’ or children’s generations, and western (particularly the USAmerican) society in general. While I did criticize the author above, I found her work compelling, well-written, thoroughly researched and detailed. I enjoyed the book, cover-to-cover, and feel better-equipped with helpful statistics for various topics that I like to discuss and write about!