Jean Twenge (author of GENERATIONS, iGEN)
@jean_twenge
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Mental health, social media, Gen Z at work, trends. Professor and speaker. Newest: https://t.co/nAzNtRqybI Generations book: https://t.co/iiXdzD9Hlf
San Diego, CA
Joined April 2017
This is stunning -- Chinese kids under 14 primarily see educational videos on TikTok and are limited to 40 minutes a day. The U.S. version is a free-for-all and has no time limit.
“It’s almost like [Chinese company Bytedance] recognize[s] that technology’s influencing kids’ development, and they make their domestic version a spinach TikTok, while they ship the opium version to the rest of the world,” says Tristan Harris.
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Just out: Depression among U.S. teen girls doubled from 2009 to 2019 and was up 74% among teen boys, according to just-released data from the gov't administered National Survey of Drug Use and Health. What does this mean?
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The number of U.S. 13-year-olds who never read for fun has nearly quadrupled.
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Why is the teen birth rate falling? Because #iGen is growing up more slowly. It's not just sex and pregnancy; it's also driving, working, drinking alcohol, and going out -- it's all done later.
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Two personality psychologists trying to make sense of the weirdness of this cultural moment: Why online culture is so often toxic & why teens are taking longer to grow up (and lots more). My recent discussion with @jordanbpeterson: .
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"Everybody knows" Millennials got screwed by the economy and will never own homes. Surprised to find that's not true: Millennials actually make *more* money than Gen X & Boomers did at the same age. More in the excerpt of my new book, Generations, out in The Atlantic today:.
Studies show that Millennials, despite a rough start, are now thriving financially, @jean_twenge writes. What if the American dream is still alive, but no one believes it to be?
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Dating is definitely in crisis mode among U.S. 17- and 18-year-olds. Data from Monitoring the Future (graph is an update of Figure 6.16 in *Generations*) @DKThomp
"Young people in America aren't dating any more, and it's the beginning of a real social crisis" is—I mean, let's be honest—exactly the sort of social phenomenon I would want to report the shit out of. But . what's the best evidence that it's true?. Just one e.g.:
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This is what is remarkable: Teen pregnancy, crime, physical fights, and child poverty are all down since 2010, but teen depression doubled. It should have gone down -- but it didn't, because smartphones and social media led to social isolation & sleep deprivation.
The teen mental health crisis was not caused by reality getting worse around 2012. Their material and physical health improved steadily. To paraphrase Epictetus: "It is not events which disturb teens. It is the device through which they interpret all events."
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We found the same thing -- more income means more happiness all the way up the income scale, with no leveling off after $75k. Plus: The link between income and happiness increased 1972-2016.
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Several studies find higher income = more happiness, but with a plateau after $60-75K of income, with no happiness advantage for more money after that. In the GSS, that wasn't true -- more money meant more happiness even at the high end. (1/3)
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This is what happens when we give individualistic advice like "You shouldn't care what anyone else thinks of you." It's meant to encourage self-confidence, but if you truly don't care about others' views, rudeness and anti-social behavior are the predictable result.
The most important story about why Americans have become sad and alienated and rude, I believe, is also the simplest: We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration.
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I'm seeing a lot of posts suggesting this doesn't account for the higher cost of living. But it does: The numbers are median income *corrected for inflation*. In 2021 dollars, Millennials are making more money than Gen X'ers and Boomers at the same age. 🧵(1/3).
Studies show that Millennials, despite a rough start, are now thriving financially, @jean_twenge writes. What if the American dream is still alive, but no one believes it to be?
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This is a crucial point: Teens who quit social media feel left out, and those who stay on often grapple with mental health issues. You can't win. Social media is social. We need group solutions, not individual ones.
WSJ also shared how FB *knows* Instagram's design drives a downward spiral in teen mental health– worse than Snapchat, TikTok. Facebook is worse than Big Tobacco. A single person can quit cigarettes. Instagram *preys* on social exclusion. Kids feel ostracized if they quit.
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In 2017, when I first linked social media to the increases in teen depression, "that's correlation, not causation" was a common response. Now there are enough experiments to show causality. To those who say we still need more studies, my question is this: How much longer are we.
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@jmwooldridge No, you are completely correct. Very important distinction. A shift from 3% to 6% is a 3 percentage point change but a 100% increase.
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Parents: Does this look negligible to you? Twice as many heavy users of social media are depressed vs. non-users, 3x among girls. (From the UK Millennium Cohort Study of 15-year-olds). And yes, there are experiments showing causation as well.
Smartphones aren’t ruining your kids’ mental health. Studies have found the link between screen time and depression to be negligible. This is one of many convenient myths we parents accept instead of digging deeper into complex behavioral issues. Keep reading for 3 more myths.
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This is INSANE!!.
SMARTPHONE BAN.In the US, a teacher (Mary Garza) instructed her students to set their phones to loud mode. Each time a notification was received they’d stand up & tally it under a suitable category. This occurred during ONE class period. Each mark is a learning disruption #edchat
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3 truths here:.1. When the "Millennials will never be able to afford houses" complaints were peaking in the 2010s, affordability was actually the best. 2. It's bad right now. Millennials & Gen Z (or anyone) who didn't buy before 2021 are in a tough spot. 3. It was actually worse
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This is what I hear from managers hiring entry-level employees: "I'm surprised how many won't look me in the eye." One way to build these types of social skills: No phones during the school day so teens talk to each other, face to face, at lunch.
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Wow, this is a terrible idea ("silent lunch"). Kids & teens already don't get enough time to socialize face-to-face, and now we're going to tell them they can't talk at lunch in school?.
Child development much?. A "top" school in NC enforces silent lunch because admins "found that 15 minutes was not enough time to eat if the children were allowed to talk.". Less talking = more instruction time! Better test scores! All that matters!.
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Q: What fraction of 1994 teens read 10+ books for fun per year?.A: Twice as many as in 2022. Reading started dropping in the '70s, resurgence '00s, then back down. End result: All-time lows. From Monitoring the Future (nationally representative survey) @paulg
@paulg I wouldn't be surprised if teens read more per day today than they did 30 years ago. But it's in different locations than 30 years ago. I suspect there are some very positive effects of this, and some very negative. I'd love to know what fraction of 1994 teens read 10+ books.
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Exactly. This is the image I show in my talks at schools, with the line "Would we let students bring TV sets to school?" That's how it would have looked. And phones can do everything a TV can and more. No phones during the school day bell to bell just makes sense.
Most states are taking action toward making their schools phone-free. It's totally bipartisan. It's also common sense. When I was in school, we were not allowed to bring in our televisions and watch during class.
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Teens are also less likely to get a driver's license, have a paid job, or drink alcohol. It's part of a broader trend of slower development at every stage: kids are less independent, young adults marry & have kids later, "60 is the new 50." Comes back to technology, which gives.
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The U.S. birth rate is now at the lowest level ever recorded. This is not going to reverse anytime soon: There's a big decline in 18yo who want to have children, esp. young women. (From "The Future" chapter of *Generations.*).
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Among teens, every screen activity is correlated with less happiness, and every non-screen activity (except working) is correlated with more happiness. Out today in the @APA journal Emotion.
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Check out this brilliant demonstration of the compulsion to use social media -- even if you don't like it.
An excerpt from “We’ve Been Sneaking Into Your Brains” @HumaneTech_ Head of Education, @MaxStossel's talk to 800 middle and high school students in Braintree, Massachusetts.
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I can think of a few things that changed in teens' lives around the world in 2012 and after that might have an impact on learning . .
What is HAPPENING here?. Between 2012 and 2023, it appears that average OECD reading, math and science scores have declined consistently. This is not (just) about pandemic learning loss. It’s not about one US city. It’s not even just the US. This is the entire developed world.
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Diagnoses of anxiety and depression by hours of screen time among teens. Notes: 1) controls for gender, race/ethnicity, SES, etc. 2) 21% of older teens spend 7+ hours on screens, so this is not a small population.
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Exactly: Teen happiness was actually increasing until the 2010s, and then it plummeted. This graph from a 2018 paper (in Emotion) shows the first few years of the decline:.
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It's difficult to describe the increase in young adults identifying as transgender since 2014 in words. The graph captures it much better. Data from a CDC survey. More in *Generations* and the excerpt in @TIME:.
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Important article about the dark side of TikTok, especially for kids & teens. It's not just fun dances anymore.
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New paper: Huge increase in the % of hospitalizations involving suicide or self-harm among U.S. teens 2009-2019. Just the latest evidence that the teen mental health crisis is *not* just self-report, and is *not* just due to the pandemic.
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Six years after *iGen* caught the first few years of rising teen depression, there's much more data on this concerning trend -- plus more research on what caused it. That's a major part of the Gen Z chapter of my new book, *Generations*.
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It's not just that the two trends happened at the same time -- it's that the rise of smartphones and social media had an enormous impact on day to day life for teens. More in my book, iGen, and in this article:
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What do happy teens do? Correlations between teen activities and their self-reported happiness show some interesting patterns. My latest @PsychToday:.
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Really amazing and powerful short film about the downsides of smartphones & social media. Not a coincidence that the observer of all this is a child. What world are we leaving for the next generation?.
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It's not an illusion: Gen Z really does read less. More here: .
"professors say students are coming into college with a host of new and alarming learning challenges, including fragmented and distracted thinking, along with sharper limits on what they are willing or able to do"
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Help me solve a Pride Month mystery: Why did depression increase among LGBT young adults even more than among straight & cis young adults? From 2014-2021, acceptance grew and rights were gained; the "backlash" bills didn't start until 2022.
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Because we can't randomly assign people to be born at different times, we can't prove causation. We have to go on the data we have -- and the rise of smartphones & social media had the biggest impact on the most teens, and is thus the most likely to impact mental health.
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More than a third of kindergarteners and 1st graders are now using social media. Surely we can all agree this is not a good idea. So why aren't we doing something about it?.
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The implications of the mental health crisis among Gen Z and Millennials in the U.S. and Canada: My latest in @globeandmail. Based on the research in *Generations*:.
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After rising 1991-2012, teens' happiness suddenly plunged 2012-2016. Unusual to have such a quick generational shift -- in this case from #Millennials to #iGen. In the @APA journal Emotion, out today.
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I do have that data, and extracurricular time in high school is basically unchanged 1987-2019 among those going straight to a four-year college. Homework time is also about the same. Fewer have paid jobs, and they spend less time out with friends. So teens have more time, not.
I don't have data on the hours that well-off kids spend on extra curriculars now vs. 1994 or whatever. But with travel sports and looks-good-on-college-application-activities, it wouldn't surprise me if ambitious kids are doing things other than reading w/ their spare time.
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Are there other possible causes? Sure. But it's tough to think of anything else that changed consistently over this time period that had as big an impact on so many people. No matter what the cause: We need more resources for teen mental health. This can't continue.
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Very consistent with the charts in the Millennial chapter of *Generations*: Millennials and Gen Z are doing very well financially despite the extremely common idea that they will never catch up to previous generations. They already have.
Major update to the Generational Wealth chart. Based on the updated SCF data, young people have a lot more wealth than we had previously thought. Millennials and Gen Z have dramatically more wealth than Gen X had at the same age, and it's growing fast!.
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When discussing the huge increase in Gen Z suicide, many counter, "But the suicide rate is highest among middle-aged men." Not anymore. Since 2020, suicide is more common among American men in their 20s than those in their 50s. More on S*bst*ck (link in profile).
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A very important article about one of the biggest generational / cultural shifts out there: We now spend more time alone. That's due to technology as well as individualism, and it's one of the major reasons we have a mental health crisis.
And here is “The Anti-Social Century,” in full. Gift link! Read and share (and go outside!).
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They're not the only one . and it's part of a broader decline in teens doing adult things & delaying the milestones of adolescence. Graph from the Gen Z chapter of Generations.
Me: “you need to get your drivers license.”. 17 yo: “whyyyy?”. WHAT IS HAPPENING?.
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What did Facebook's internal research conclude about Instagram and teen mental health? I read all 209 pages so you don't have to. There's a lot in the documents that hasn't been covered yet. Includes advice for policy based on the leaked research:.
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Could not have had a more fantastic time on the @RealTimers show with @BillMaher talking about *Generations* last night! So rare and appreciated to have an in-depth discussion of people & ideas on TV.
#StartTheClock: Tonight's episode of Real Time with @BillMaher feat. Dr. @Jean_Twenge, @AnnCoulter and @VanJones68 is now on @HBO! . Watch the conversation continue after the show on #RTOvertime at 11:30pm ET on @CNN.
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For the critics saying the absolute numbers of teen girl suicides are small: But the number with clinical depression is *not* small: 28%, up from 12% in 2011. That's *3.6 million* U.S. girls. But we also have to examine suicide as the critics dismiss the depression stats as
@Leesplez The increase in teen girl depression is large in absolute terms. Critics said that could be due to more liberal diagnosis and greater awareness. So that’s why Haidt is focusing on suicide. The small absolute increase in suicide supports a large absolute increase in depression.
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🧵A few years ago, a slew of articles told parents they didn't need to worry about teens' screen time, because links to mental health were too small to matter. It turns out those studies were hiding something: Social media.
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The vocabulary skills of U.S. college graduates declined 1972-2016. Vocabulary is a key part of verbal IQ. New study with @wkeithcampbell & @RyneSherman in the journal Intelligence:.
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Negative news gets clicks, so becomes more common. The result: Pervasive pessimism disconnected from reality. Many believe the economy is terrible (even when it's not) and are certain this is the worst time in history to live (when in many ways it's the best time).
New paper: An analysis of news coverage between 1850 and 2020 finds that the news "has become increasingly negative across all states in the past half century.". Economic sentiment has plunged since 2000. Non-econ news sentiment has steadily declined since 1980.
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Last year an NYT headline declared social media is a "clear net benefit" for LGBT teens. If so, LGBT teens should have become less depressed as social media became more accessible. Instead, more LGBT teens are depressed.
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On tonight! Will be discussing *Generations*, especially Gen Z and how they are different.
FRIDAY: @BillMaher welcomes #Generations author @Jean_Twenge + @VanJones68 and @AnnCoulter to Real Time @HBO!. Reply with a question and join the conversation after the show on #RTOvertime.
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Social media has co-opted our kids' time and attention. 3 out of 4 spend 2+ hours a day on social media -- less than 1 out of 3 spend that much time on homework. Average social media use is 4 hrs/day, about as much as a part-time job (from a new Gallup report). Not healthy.
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My youngest daughter turns 13, the age of "internet adulthood," on Sunday -- the same day TikTok will be banned. I'm glad there will be one less platform I'll have to try to keep her off, even though that's not the reason for the ban. Happy birthday, child, and let's celebrate.
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Association between screen time and anger issues from
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We know young kids shouldn't be on social media. So why don't their parents stop them? Because they can't. Parental permission is not required, and age isn't verified. We need more regulation, not knee-jerk "where are the parents?" arguments.
The smartphone era has brought an alarming rise in loneliness, depression, and other mental-health issues among kids. We must keep children and young teens off social media, but parents alone can’t do it. | @jean_twenge .
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Great article describing a fascinating book on teen sleep. The teen sleep deprivation epidemic and the teen mental health crisis go hand in hand.
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Important note: The left graph in @DKThomp's post is more about teens taking longer to grow up, which has both upsides (less alcohol) and downsides (less independence). More concerning is the decline in teens going out with friends (from the Gen Z ch. of *Generations*).
It’s mostly cringe for middle aged people to gawk at general changes in younger generations, but the anti-socialization of childhood in America is really a stunning thing to see all at once. ht @jean_twenge
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All schools need to be doing this.
My kids go to a public middle school in NYC where they lock up their phones for the day. This is what the school observed:. “Overall, the program has been a massive success. We are happy to share that we continue to see the benefits of using Yondr, with increased student
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Gen X has been more conservative and more Republican for their entire adult lives. One theory is that a generation's political tilt is decided by the popularity & party of the president when they are young, and for Gen X that was Reagan.
This is fascinating. Any hot takes on why Gen X decided the election?
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No, it's not all rosy (yep, student loans). But Millennial women are making *a lot* more than Boomer women did, and Millennial incomes are higher bc more went to college. These are great developments. Why is it bad to note that a generation has been financially successful? (3/3).
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The rise in depression also continued for young adults (ages 18 to 25), from 8.3% in 2011 to 13.8% in 2018. Thus, 66% more young adults in 2018 (vs. 2011) had clinical-level depression. But little change for those 26+. Per NS-DUH:
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Very compelling case for no phones in school bell to bell. My favorite part might be the postscript: Let's talk to kids and teens about this more.
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From the Gen Z chapter of *Generations*. And no, we can't continue like this.
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The new digital divide: The most vulnerable kids are spending more time with screens.
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The Chronicle of Higher Ed (@chronicle) asks "Is this the end of reading?" In a word, yes. And college faculty are noticing.
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Remember the paper finding that "screen time" was just as correlated with well-being as potatoes? Zero in on devices & social media, and links to well-being are stronger than for hard drugs, obesity, and sometimes even heroin use. Hold the french fries!
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The 2019 data makes it clear that the rise in teen depression is not due to the Great Recession. In fact, it's exactly the *opposite* of what you'd expect if teen depression were caused by economic struggles: As depression rose 2009-2019, the U.S. economy was steadily improving.
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🚨 2022 data on self-harm behaviors just released by the CDC 🚨 .What does this mean for girls' mental health? Free post:.
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Heavy social media use predicts more depression a year later, even when controlled for past depression in new large, longitudinal study of teens. Suggests at least some of association is social media --> depression. @KERiehm @JAMAPsych .
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Sharp increases in distress, depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts & suicide in the U.S. since 2011 -- mostly among teens and young adults, less for ages 26+. Our latest in Journal of Abnormal Psychology, showing stronger cohort effects:.
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The decline in reading is real. (And @Educhatter is correct: It began looong before book bans).
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One out of 3 American teen girls considered suicide in 2021. The time for denial is over. We have to take action.
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Gen X is the most Republican generation when you control for age. Only recent gen to tilt Republican while young. The left's recent "you can't say that" movement gave them no reason to change. (Tho they're also not fans of the similar ideas on the right).
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Also stunning since negativity went *up* between 2021 and 2023 as the COVID pandemic waned. Why are people so negative right now? (Honestly asking; theories welcome).
This is stunning: A majority of Americans believe life today is worse than it was half a century ago. What was different — and better— about the lives of people in 1973? . And what is worse about today?
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Fascinating chart of what has increased in price and what has decreased in price. The biggest surprise: The cost of housing is very close to overall inflation. Health care, college, and child care are more expensive, but cars, clothes, and electronics are more affordable.
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Common fallacy: "Because social media use and in-person socializing are positively correlated, SM can't be the cause of the decline in face-to-face socializing." This confuses individual-level effects (social kids are social kids) and group-level effects (as SM use rose over the.
Increased social media use among adolescents predicted increased time spent with friends offline in longitudinal study.
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The perils and eventual success of doing research in the public sphere about #Millennials & change. @adamconover
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These same trends appear when teens are asked about these activities in time-lag studies (say, Boomers as teens in 1976, Gen Z as teens in 2022 -- see *iGen* and *Generations*). So it's not memory bias. Gen Z really is taking longer to grow up, and they really are experiencing.
We asked over 5000 Americans about their teenage experiences. The generational differences are stark, and Gen Z leads the pack when it comes to loneliness. Read the JUST RELEASED report:
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Book release countdown: Less than a month until *Generations* is published!.
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🚨 This is huge: Facebook did internal research showing Instagram is linked to mental health issues among teen girls. (& supposedly the sample sizes are massive). What does this mean?.
“WE MAKE BODY IMAGE ISSUES WORSE FOR 1 IN 3 TEEN GIRLS.” That’s a document that Facebook employees shared internally, summarizing research about teen girls who experience these issues. By me, @JeffHorwitz + @dseetharaman
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It's bc teens are less likely to do all adult activities, not just working. This slow life strategy happens with longer life spans, and also explains why people now marry & have children later and why "50 is the new 40." Not all good or all bad, just is. (⬇️U.S. 12th graders)
A common difference I see between Gen X and millennials/GenZ in the workplace is the number of odd jobs they had in their youth. Many attribute this change to greater class divisions or the growing number of college graduates, but it seems to have much more to do with culture.
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Always welcome the opportunity to talk about why our 16-year-old had a flip phone until last month. Oh, and lots of other stuff on generations and technology, too!.
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Love this. And a lot of experts, including me and @JonHaidt, have been saying for years we should ban phones in school bell to bell.
When we put a cell phone ban in place everyone said it would be LITERALLY impossible to enforce. I now walk the halls and cafeteria and see zero phones anywhere. I’m done listening to the “experts” when it comes to what’s possible in schools, especially when it comes to behavior.
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Exactly -- found the same thing in the Gen Z chapter of *Generations*. Might be one of the primary drivers behind the more pronounced rise in depression among liberal teens -- they are seeing friends in person less. Liberal teens are also spending more time on social media.
1/ Weekly recreational outings have been falling for 12th-graders across the board, but this decline generally leveled off among cons. students around 2015, whereas it has continued apace among libs (who tended to go out more frequently than cons. until the late 2000s or so)
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2/3 of teens want to curb their smartphone use, and more than half support smartphone bans at their schools.
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NSDUH screens adolescents (ages 12 to 17) using clinical criteria for major depressive episode in the last year. Twice as many teen girls in 2019 (vs. 2009) have clinical-level depression, and 74% more teen boys do as well. Why?.
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The rule in our house: You don't get a smartphone until you have your driver's license. Before that, only phones with no internet access and no social media. Love the suggestions here on ways to help kids be safer in the digital age. @TODAYshow .
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The evidence is now overwhelming that depression, self-harm, suicide attempts, and suicide have increased among U.S. teens since 2012. See a summary of studies collected by @JonHaidt and I here:
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Really fascinating, and consistent with other research on teens and young adults:.-- Wanting to have a job helping others up 2008-2022.-- Importance of "helping others in difficulty" up 2008-2019.-- Narcissism up 1982-2007, down 2008-2016.Gen Z & younger Millennials = more.
Some good news for the new year: our newly published paper finds that empathic traits have been rising in American youth since 2008.
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As just two examples:.Is right now really worse than 2008-09 during the Great Recession (particularly for young college graduates, who were Millennials at the time)?.Is it worse than the 1960s-80s, when the prospect of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia seemed ever-present?.
-Left: a recent NYT Instagram post.-Right: a paragraph from @JonHaidt’s latest book describing the problem with posts just like this
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There's a reason this is getting traction -- so many people feel this way. "I don't like it, but I feel compelled to do it" is the classic pattern for addictive behaviors.
Every morning I am sooooo tired and yet every night I just tap tap tap tap at this little rectangle I hate.
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