Generations

Psychology professor Jean Twenge uses a persuasive mix of stats, facts, and charts gathered from datasets of 39 million people to demonstrate how new technologies increase individualism and extend the time it takes to grow up. These shifts make each generation distinct from and enigmatic to others and shape future social, political, and economic trends.

Six Generations

Six generations exist in the United States today: silents (born 1925–1945), boomers (1946–1964), generation X (1965–1979), millennials (1980–1994), generation Z (1995–2012), and polars (2013–2029), or alphas. People born in the same generation experience more or less the same culture, Twenge writes. That shared culture shapes the individual personalities of each demographic’s members, leading to generational differences.