Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before (Jean Twenge, Ph.D.)

Do you believe that self-esteem is more important than personal achievement? Do you believe that anything is possible regardless of one’s talent level or work ethic? Were you born after 1970? If you’ve answered “yes” to all three questions (or at least the last one), then it’s time to self-reflect.

Within Generation Me, Dr. Twenge, a San Diego State University professor, presents compelling data that identifies you folks born in 1971 and beyond as indulgent, spoiled, impatient, and unprepared for the realities of adult life in the 21st Century. Her commentary isn’t at all complimentary. But before you get really pissed off and refuse to read her book and before those who are older and wiser (ha) hail her a genius, understand this, too: Twenge blames your parents and your teachers (that would be us!) for making you indulgent, spoiled, impatient, and unprepared for the realities of adult life in the 21st Century. Intrigued?

Generation Me isn’t a pedantic opinion. It’s a compilation of longitudinal data collected through statistics, polls, personality test results, and more that presents a somewhat sad commentary on modern life in America. The book reads sort of like a tweaked dissertation—which it might be--so get ready to trudge through a mass of statistics and their somewhat redundant implications. Regardless, it tells an important story that really can give readers an epiphany or two about the obvious shift in American culture and why some things are now the way they are (especially relative to education issues like inflated grades, social promotion, non-participative parents, and the like) instead of the way those of us born prior to 1971 remember them.

I rarely read nonfiction.  However, since reading this for our 2008 faculty book discussion, Generation Me has become my absolute favorite piece of recent nonfiction. I refer to it countless times in the classes I teach. But each time I do, I wonder which twenty-something or thirty-something student I’ll irritate. To date, no one has been offended nor has anyone filed related grievances so maybe things aren’t as grim as Generation Me would have us think. Let's hope.