Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--And More Miserable Than Ever Before [Paperback]

First, the high points. The author has a lot of interesting survey data that she uses compare the attitudes of "baby boomers" and "generation me".

She shows how today's youth are much more accepting of other races, cultures and sexual orientations; how people are open about their feelings; how women no longer face the kind of discrimination that they did 30 years ago; how young people want to do fulfilling things with their lives and are more self-reliant than ever.

And of course we see the downside: narcissism due to what can only be described as too much self-esteem; an unwillingness to take personal responsibility; too much of a focus on money and celebrity; and an epidemic of depression that no one has yet found a cause for.

The contrast between the generations is very interesting - dating someone outside your race is no longer an issue; the average woman in 2005 has a more aggressive personality (as measured by her survey) than the average man did in 1968. All cool stuff, and it would have been great if the author could have distilled the most significant of these differences into a single chapter.

Unfortunately, she didn't, and I found this to be a very frustrating read overall. She discusses the mismatch between the ambitions of young people and the careers they ultimately end up in. She is right to question kids who want to be "made" into famous hip-hop stars or models or actors, but she also sneers at all of the kids who want to be doctors, lawyers, dentists, etc.

She devotes pages - if not chapters - to the idea that "work should suck" and that young people should not expect to find their dream jobs, let alone fulfilling employment - but then when she discusses what young people can do to be more realistic, she lauds two 25-year-olds who quit their jobs and biked across the US to raise money for charity.

To make matters worse, she chides young people for being cynical about the government, and then chides them for not being cynical enough about their jobs. To top it all off, she thens admits that, as a professor, she "[doesn't] know much about nonacademic career paths".

One thing she does know - and she repeats it numerous times in the book - is that not just anyone out there can become a college professor like her. In many ways, this book feels like the author's attempt to get back at people who made fun of her and wronged her when she was growing up. Even though she's 33 years old and some of the subjects she talks to are 12, she often calls this "her generation" and makes generalizations about it based on her experience. She writes: "Publish the damn honor roll...[I]t's [a] small bit of high school glory enjoyed by the kids who will someday be our doctors and lawyers." Though of course she cautions against encouraging even the smartest and most capable students lest they become convinced that they don't need to work hard to accomplish their goals.

Ultimately, she ends up blaming the victims. Today's 15-to-25-year-olds don't run the world, their parents do. For all her talk about personal responsibility, she devotes exactly one sentence to telling parents that they bear some of the blame for how their kids have turned out.

The author had the opportunity to write something substantial about the changes that have happened over the last two generations. Instead, she decided to write a polemic against people who are not just like her. This will certainly appeal to anyone who likes to believe that "these damn kids are so disrespectful these days", but an insightful book, it's not.

I'd describe this book as an interesting yet flawed work- it raises some interesting questions, but often fails to follow through with incisive analysis.

Any book that attempts to describe "a generation" is going to raise objections of over-generalization and, therefore, anyone who writes such a book really should start by explaining just why, exactly, this is a useful characterization. At a minimum, there are problems of periodization, inclusiveness, and timeliness.

Some generations have been shaped by world-historical events (e.g., WWII, Cold War, Great Depression) but, since that does not seem to be the case here, then why define a generation as beginning in 1973 instead of 1982, or 1989? And, although the author beats pretty hard on the diversity drum, her observations often seem entirely centered on her own white, liberal, upper-middle-class self. Perhaps that's inevitable, but, if her "generation" generalities do not include those who are non-white, non-liberal, or non-middle-class then she should explicitly say so.

The primary thesis of this book seems to be that a sort of extreme individualism is characteristic of her "Generation Me." One problem with this is that it may be too soon to say- after all, a similar survey of young adults in 1928 might have reached similar conclusions, yet a survey of the same people in 1948 might well have discovered a greater accommodation to collective action and personal sacrifice. Also, she seems to define "generations" largely on the basis of a shared common popular culture without any apparent awareness that conformity to an omnipresent, highly commercialized popular culture just might be antithetical to a more authentic individuality.

The book seemed particularly weak in discussing family and marriage. There seems to be a good deal of evidence that, on average, married people are healthier, wealthier, and happier than otherwise-similar singles- and that the reason for this is that the relative permanence and security of marriage promote a commingling of assets and labor specialization- a co-dependence, if you will- that is seldom found among non-married co-habiting couples. Yet, duty and obligation- even if mutual, and voluntarily assumed- surely restrict one's absolute freedom! And so, this book would have been far stronger had the author explored the trade-offs between the freedom to do whatever, whenever against the the freedom to voluntarily bind oneself to durable commitments of duty and obligation to others.

In all, I wouldn't characterize this as a bad book- just an unfinished one. It does raise important questions.

I was very excited to read this book after perusing all of the positive reviews on Amazon and other sites. As I began the book, it did not disappoint. The author seemed to have a real insight into generational differences, and had fantastic research to back up many of her points.

While it was presented well, her foundational assertions are incorrect. To combine people born in the early 70s with those born in the 90s is fundamentally flawed on so many levels that it is hardly worth discussing. The research dividing post 1964 generations into gen x and generation next or gen y is far more compelling and in much more abundance than anything presented in this text. Her explanation of why her definitions are superior to these is woefully inadequate.

While the beginning of the book is made up of one insight after another backed up by some quality and unique research. The rest of the book is one point of hearsay after another backed up by quotes from Dawson's Creek and Teen magazines. Seriously! I was shocked that a supposed academic would use dialogue from a television show as insight into a generation, and then have the audacity to call it "research". She would actually use fictional television dialogue to lend support to her analysis. If she hoped to define a generation, a lot more is needed than pop culture references.

The final part of the book I will address is the recommendations section at the very end of the book. She recommends the government create national childcare, expand public school to 3 and 4 year olds, and change school hours. What does this have to do with her topic??? Nothing!!! Where did this come from? The only connection to her text is her complaints about the high cost of living. Let us look into those complaints a little while we are on the topic. She complains that the cost of living is so high in highly desirable metropolitan areas that young people out of college cannot afford to live there on one salary, and that women have to work to afford this type of housing. You mean to tell me that we live in a society where those straight out of college cannot buy into the most desirable 2% of the housing market in this country. What a tragedy. Does she realize that the starting salary of a college graduate could afford to put the roof over the heads of a spouse and children in every county in this country? It may not be the nice housing in San Diego that she seems to see as minimally acceptable, but it is housing. She describes her generation as being one of entitlement, and then goes on to unknowingly prove it through her asinine series of recommendations at the end of the text.