There’s never been an older generation that didn’t complain about the younger one. Parents tut and fuss over errant youth. That’s the way of it. But in the end the kids come around. Swingers grow into Karens. The wild child pays his bills.
But kids these days… they do seem different. It’s not just that we, the older generations, are worried about them, but that they’re desperately worried about themselves. And according to Dr Jean Twenge, a psychologist at San Diego State University who studies generational changes, we’re right to worry. Almost 30 per cent of American girls have clinical depression and it’s the same across the Anglosphere. The suicide rate for ten- to 24-year-olds has tripled. ‘Let that sink in,’ writes Twenge in the introduction to her new book, Generations. ‘Imagine if nine domestic airline flights filled with ten- to 24-year-olds crashed every single year killing everyone on board. Airplanes would not be allowed to fly again until we figured out why.’
‘The rise in depression and self-harm occurred at the same time as the rise in smartphones and social media’
Twenge (51, Gen X) began looking at the differences between generations as a 22-year-old doctoral student.
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