Generation Me by Jean Twenge (Read Via Physical Book)

I picked this up after seeing a reference that Marco made to it. Boy was it a good read. The book dives into the sociology of ‘Generation Me’ Err people who were born from the 80’s to about the 2000’s or so. The key concept presented was the notion of ‘Self’ & ‘Self-esteem.’ Twenge takes a good dive into the numbers of how making students feel good, has very little effect on performance. In some cases it backfires bigtime.

Another great note is how the social dynamics have changed. This generation does not believe in doing anything in groups will change anything. They don’t get how protests change countries. Not to mention voting. Most people I know think voting in a election is just for the president of the united states. They don’t seem to realize there are state governments, local, and even school votes. But what to I know, I only have a green card.

Overall I do have one favorite paragraph from page 136:
In some ways, the shift toward melancholy in young people seems paradoxical: Generation Me has so much more than previous generations—we are healthier, enjoy countless modern conveniences, and are better educated. But Generation Me often lacks other basic human requirements: stable close relationships, a sense of community, a feeling of safety, a simple path to adulthood and the workplace. Our grandparents may have done without television and gone to the bathroom in an outhouse, but they were usually not lonely, scared by threats of terrorism, or obsessing about the best way to get into Princeton. As David Myers argues in his book The American Paradox, the United States has become a place where we have more but feel worse. Technology and material things may make life easier, but they do not seem to lead to happiness. Instead, we long for the social connections of past years, we enter a confusing world of too many choices, and we become depressed at younger and younger ages.

A great book a solid 9/10

Via -marco:

“In her 2006 book, Generation Me, Twenge notes that self-esteem in children began rising sharply around 1980, and hasn’t stopped since. By 1999, according to one survey, 91 percent of teens described themselves as responsible, 74 percent as physically attractive, and 79 percent as very intelligent. (More than 40 percent of teens also expected that they would be earning $75,000 a year or more by age 30; the median salary made by a 30-year-old was $27,000 that year.) Twenge attributes the shift to broad changes in parenting styles and teaching methods, in response to the growing belief that children should always feel good about themselves, no matter what. As the years have passed, efforts to boost self-esteem—and to decouple it from performance—have become widespread.”

— [How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America](http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/201003/jobless-america-future) (a great overall article, but for this brief quote, paraphrasing this book)