Speaker 1: Things like nine to eleven or wars, or pandemics or recessions,
Speaker 1: and that certainly has some influence on people, but not
Speaker 1: as much as technology and technological change.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome
Speaker 2: Gene Twengey to the podcast. Gene is professor of psychology
Speaker 2: at San Diego State University. She frequently gives talks and
Speaker 2: seminars on generational differences and technology based on a data
Speaker 2: set of thirty nine million people. Her audiences have included
Speaker 2: college faculty and staff, parent groups, military personnel, camp directors,
Speaker 2: and corporate executives. Her work has been repeatedly featured by
Speaker 2: the media, and she has authored more than one hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty scientific publications and books, including Igen, Generation Me,
Speaker 2: and The Narcissism Epidemic. Her latest book, which is her
Speaker 2: magnum opus, is called Generations. In this episode, I talked
Speaker 2: to Gene Tweiney about the real differences between the generations.
Speaker 2: Did you know that our current time has the most
Speaker 2: number of living generations to coexist ever in the history
Speaker 2: of humanity. Unfortunately, there is often conflict and miscommunication between them.
Speaker 2: According to Gene, this is largely due to how the
Speaker 2: advancement of tech has scheaped major life experiences. She shares
Speaker 2: interesting statistics about each cohort and debug's common misconceptions about
Speaker 2: baby boomers, Millennials, gen Z, and others. We also touch
Speaker 2: on the topics of narcissism, polarization, mental health, gender identity,
Speaker 2: and compassion. So, without further ado, I bring you, Gene Twingey.
Speaker 2: Nice to finally meet you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel the same.
Speaker 2: It's been a while, but it's a good timing because
Speaker 2: this is your magnum opus. Yes, it is absolutely wow
Speaker 2: wow generations, the real differences between Gen Z, Millennials, gen
Speaker 2: X boomers, and silence, and what they mean for America's future.
Speaker 2: No big deal, No big deal. I mean talk about
Speaker 2: a synthesis of data. You know, we talk about like
Speaker 2: you know, in grad school, it's like, if I have
Speaker 2: more than two hundred participants, I'm I'm happy I get
Speaker 2: a PhD. But your analysis is derived from twenty one
Speaker 2: data sets that go back to the nineteen forties and
Speaker 2: up to as recent as this year, spanning about thirty
Speaker 2: eight million people. Is that right?
Speaker 4: That's about right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm fortunate I did not have to collect
Speaker 1: that data myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, That is good. That is good. Your book
Speaker 2: covers these five generations Silence born nineteen twenty five, nineteen
Speaker 2: forty five, Boomers born nineteen forty six, nineteen sixty four,
Speaker 2: Generation X, which we'll talk about because I don't even
Speaker 2: know where I belong, but that's born nineteen sixty five
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, Millennials born nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: and gen Z born nineteen ninety five to twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: What is the mean criteria upon which those five were clustered?
Speaker 1: You mean in terms of the term, say the birth,
Speaker 1: your cutoffs, that type of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who decided that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, nobody and everybody.
Speaker 1: There's not really any commission that decides, you know, what
Speaker 1: those cutoffs should be. Pretty much everybody agrees that living
Speaker 1: now is different from what it was like to live
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago, or fifty years ago, or even
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, and we agree that that has an
Speaker 1: effect on people's behaviors and attitudes and values. So really,
Speaker 1: you know, the debate is kind of around the detail.
Speaker 1: So then you know, how do you group the generations?
Speaker 1: Are those cutoffs the right ones? So for boomers, it
Speaker 1: was fairly clear based on demographics, based on the baby boom,
Speaker 1: so on fertility rates, and then from there it's a
Speaker 1: little bit more fuzzy. But technology has accelerated, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the turnover and change, and so the generations
Speaker 1: have got a little bit shorter, and the cutoffs that
Speaker 1: I'm using are you know, more or less agreed upon,
Speaker 1: although you can certainly debate them.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I've seen jen X sometimes defined those. Sometimes
Speaker 2: I see like the missing year in nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 2: which is the year I was born, and some people
Speaker 2: don't know where to put that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think most most of the theories and most
Speaker 1: of the cutoffs would put you as a gen xer.
Speaker 1: So you're a late gen xer right in that transition
Speaker 1: between gen X and millennials.
Speaker 2: I'm an early millennial.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen a whole lot of people using seventy
Speaker 1: nine for early millennial. It usually the costs are nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty for the first year for millennials, or sometimes I
Speaker 1: see nineteen eighty one, sometimes I see nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, you know the traditional or classic way of
Speaker 2: kind of talking about the thing that kind of differently
Speaker 2: is the main differentiator between all these things. Is looking
Speaker 2: at major life events that everyone experienced together. But you
Speaker 2: argue in your book that that's maybe missing out on
Speaker 2: some really key differences between these things. Is that right, Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think so, because, yeah, that's the traditional focus was
Speaker 1: on major events. How old we when certain big things
Speaker 1: happened in the world or in the country, So things
Speaker 1: like nine to eleven or wars or pandemics or recessions,
Speaker 1: and that certainly has some influence on people, but not
Speaker 1: as much as technology and technological change. And there I'm
Speaker 1: not just talking about computers and smartphones, but also things
Speaker 1: like labor saving devices like washing machines, air conditioning, airplanes,
Speaker 1: better medical care. You know, these are the things that
Speaker 1: make living now so completely different from what it was
Speaker 1: like to live in a previous era.
Speaker 2: You know, what was it like being a silent the
Speaker 2: silence generation during the Great Depression? Obviously there's no TV, right,
Speaker 2: and no phones, no very hard to commune. I guess
Speaker 2: you write. You wrote letters to each other a lot, right,
Speaker 2: you know, and the revenants from the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could talk on the phone, but you know,
Speaker 1: you had to pay the big bill if it was
Speaker 1: long distance. Gen Xers are kind of the last generation
Speaker 1: to really remember that, although probably maybe some millennials too.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about it. Let's start with the sound
Speaker 2: generation a little bit and talk about them. There's some
Speaker 2: interesting research suggesting they may have been more mentally healthy
Speaker 2: than the generations before them and also after them. Is
Speaker 2: that true, like out of even all the generations, like
Speaker 2: out of all the generations, they might be more of
Speaker 2: most and they had the least technology. So, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: what's going on? There is there a causation there?
Speaker 4: Now maybe you know, I think there's The silent.
Speaker 1: Generation does show some some a little bit more of
Speaker 1: the influence of big events, probably because there were huge
Speaker 1: events when they were young, like the Great Depression and
Speaker 1: like World War Two, and a lot fewer of them
Speaker 1: were drafted, so a lot of silence fought in Korea,
Speaker 1: but a lot fewer than say the Greatest generation before
Speaker 1: them fighting in World War Two, and then less than
Speaker 1: the Boomers being drafted to Vietnam. So they kind of
Speaker 1: had that sweet spot. They were really coming to adulthood
Speaker 1: during that post war prosperity, and it seems to have
Speaker 1: kind of grounded them and maybe helped them develop a
Speaker 1: more positive outlook online.
Speaker 2: How do you know what their mental health was? What's
Speaker 2: the data you're looking at there that you could possibly
Speaker 2: compare to this generation for instance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're always with these things of looking at
Speaker 1: generational differences and change over time. You're a little bit
Speaker 1: of a prisoner to the data that's out there.
Speaker 4: There is a.
Speaker 1: Big survey that has asked about how many days people
Speaker 1: have of poor mental health in a month.
Speaker 3: Kind of a crude measure, but it goes.
Speaker 1: Back to nineteen ninety three, and then we can kind
Speaker 1: of control for age and look at each generation. And
Speaker 1: so that's one of the data sets that used for
Speaker 1: that canclusion or silence, and you control for age and
Speaker 1: then take a look. Their mental health is better than
Speaker 1: the greatest generation before them and the boomers after them.
Speaker 2: You said something really interesting there about controlling for age.
Speaker 2: I am an individual differences researcher, So my my natural
Speaker 2: question is is the variation within each generation greater than
Speaker 2: the variation between I mean.
Speaker 1: For most group differences, you're gonna have more variations, right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And the same is true for generations.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm just wondering how much of these effects
Speaker 2: are related to age. But I'm glad that you can.
Speaker 2: You said you control for age. That's that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean that kind of that's kind of the obvious thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2: I agree. Well, I'm glad you said that. I'm glad
Speaker 2: you said that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I think another kind of obvious maybe uh maybe obvious
Speaker 2: question a lot people thinking, is is it normal for
Speaker 2: every generation to criticize or be confused by the generation
Speaker 2: that follows. Is that just like the pattern you find
Speaker 2: over and overa I think.
Speaker 1: It is kind of human nature. As things change around you,
Speaker 1: you're trying to figure it out. So I think each generation,
Speaker 1: as they get older than is trying to figure out
Speaker 1: how the world changed almost kind of underneath them, and
Speaker 1: then also trying to understand the young generation. I've always
Speaker 1: found it fascinating that older generations are really fascinated.
Speaker 3: By younger ones.
Speaker 1: Younger ones not so much of all older generations. They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you guys are done, and it's just they want to
Speaker 1: kind of skip over.
Speaker 3: It or something.
Speaker 2: You know, you guys are done. No, there is a
Speaker 2: kind of I mean.
Speaker 1: They're not going to actually say that, but that's kind
Speaker 1: of what the motivation seems to be sometimes.
Speaker 4: And I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think it's always better we're trying to all understand
Speaker 1: each other. That's usually the better outcome.
Speaker 2: I agree, But you know, there's this like there's just
Speaker 2: this like spirit in the air. It just doesn't feel
Speaker 2: loving between the generations. I don't like it. I don't
Speaker 2: like the way it makes me feel, you know, like, Okay, Boomer,
Speaker 2: you know, you know you from with that insul.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm completely with you. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: really really unfortunate. And I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: generational misunderstanding and conflict now. I think some of it
Speaker 1: just comes from that we communicate in different ways and
Speaker 1: that technological changes has kind of sped up those those
Speaker 1: differences and led to some of those misunderstandings. And you know,
Speaker 1: to be fair, it's not just across generations. We have
Speaker 1: a lot of political polarization. We have a lot of
Speaker 1: negativity just overall.
Speaker 2: Okay, I really, I really want to understand this. I agree,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of polical polarization up. I you know,
Speaker 2: looking at all the differences between and there's a lot
Speaker 2: that means it's a rich, a rich book.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 2: Your magnum opis seriously congratulations. What I find so fascinating
Speaker 2: is there's something really really different about this about what's
Speaker 2: the latest gener's gen Z? Is that is that Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's something like like it's almost like, at least at
Speaker 2: least the other four generations, they're talking the same language,
Speaker 2: like yeah, maybe drugs, but there's more drugs in one
Speaker 2: the other. But everyone knows what drugs are you But
Speaker 2: there's something you know in Gen Z. It's like you
Speaker 2: can call it the transgender generation, you know, just looking
Speaker 2: at your stats, I'm like, why not call it the
Speaker 2: transgender generation or the gender fluid generation because that is
Speaker 2: what It's just general, there's something very very different about
Speaker 2: Generation Z. I'm not making any judgment call about it,
Speaker 2: but I'm just stating. You know, what stood out to
Speaker 2: me when I was looking at reading all the difference
Speaker 2: between all the generations and to what extent is is
Speaker 2: so much this political poorisation being driven by by Gen Z.
Speaker 2: I guess that's my question?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I think I politically the
Speaker 1: break is between gen X and Millennials, which is.
Speaker 4: Kind of fascinating because in a lot of psychological.
Speaker 1: Ways around individualism, self focus, things like that, those two
Speaker 1: generations are actually kind of similar in how they grew
Speaker 1: up in some of their attitudes. But politically, that's where
Speaker 1: the break occurs. Whether we're talking about you know, Democrats
Speaker 1: versus Republicans, conservative versus liberal, that type of politics, or
Speaker 1: just things in the culture in general around free speech,
Speaker 1: around you know, how much we should be talking about
Speaker 1: things versus not about you know, all of these campus
Speaker 1: controversies and so on. That's where the break seems to
Speaker 1: take place.
Speaker 2: Well, that's interesting that you put it there, because, you know,
Speaker 2: like Coddling the American Mind kind of book, they put
Speaker 2: it really at this generation. They put it in the
Speaker 2: last like ten years.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you know, and it has it has definitely
Speaker 1: accelerated for sure. And I yeah, I don't disagree with
Speaker 1: with that idea that you know, gen Z has taken
Speaker 1: that next level. But I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: millennial participation in some of those things on campus. It
Speaker 1: was gen Z that really kind of brought those issues
Speaker 1: to the forefront. But in the last five years or so,
Speaker 1: when there's been conflicts around free speech or political things
Speaker 1: in the workplace, it's often dead millennials and gen Z
Speaker 1: banding together versus the gen X and boomer managers or bosses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I want to talk about that later. I
Speaker 2: have that on my list to talk about. I really
Speaker 2: want to talk about narcissism because you know, this is
Speaker 2: this is I've wanted every new book you have that
Speaker 2: comes out, and I was like, oh, I really want
Speaker 2: to have her on my podcast. So this is finally
Speaker 2: I get you on my podcast and we get to
Speaker 2: like go back in the archives of your work, which
Speaker 2: is great. And the narcissism research. I love how it's evolved.
Speaker 2: I've seen an evolution with you, you know, and uh,
Speaker 2: and qualifications emerge. So I'm almost glad. I wait, I
Speaker 2: am glad. I waited till now because you know, this
Speaker 2: is we get the most up to date information. My
Speaker 2: reading of the situation is that Generation X is kind
Speaker 2: of like the self esteem movement. Generation not necessarily narcisism,
Speaker 2: but it's like like self esteem is the gateway drug
Speaker 2: to narcissism.
Speaker 3: This is my at least based on anything real is.
Speaker 2: Nothing really it's like you're strong enough for good of
Speaker 2: you know, like those the Saturday Night Live skipp Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's small and then that I feel like was a
Speaker 2: gateway drug to the millennials like just up to two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, a sort of full blown not just
Speaker 2: like I'm good enough, dog Garnet, but I'm on the
Speaker 2: best right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then that all fell apart.
Speaker 2: Yes, So tell me what happened after? I know, and
Speaker 2: I think that's I've been following your work. So after
Speaker 2: two thousand and eight it fell apart, and then it
Speaker 2: started it seems like it started to kind of like
Speaker 2: drastically go down in terms of mental health, in terms
Speaker 2: of it's almost like some bubble popped some of self
Speaker 2: illusion or something. It's like, oh my gosh, you know,
Speaker 2: like and then and now you know, the way I
Speaker 2: see it is now we live in a very victimhood
Speaker 2: mentality based culture. That's just my perception. But is that
Speaker 2: But what are your thoughts on this? Do you agree?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, I think the change in narcissism is one of
Speaker 1: the few examples of psychological traits where you really see
Speaker 1: the impact of the economic the Great Recession of you know,
Speaker 1: a recession. A lot of other things don't really change
Speaker 1: all that much around the economic cycles, but narcissism really did.
Speaker 1: It peaked right before the Grave recession and then started
Speaker 1: to go down but then you know, there's got to
Speaker 1: be something else going on, because US economy then started
Speaker 1: to improve after twenty eleven or twenty twelve, right, but
Speaker 1: narcisism kept going down. But that coincides with some of
Speaker 1: the other trends with the transition to Gen Z of
Speaker 1: the rise in depression, the rise and unhappiness, the decline
Speaker 1: and self esteem, you know, all of which would at
Speaker 1: least for a young population, point in that same direction
Speaker 1: of narcissism also going down.
Speaker 2: I've wanted to bring something up with you for a
Speaker 2: long time. I guess it's the common theme of our
Speaker 2: conversation today. But oh, I'm glad I want to I
Speaker 2: want to bring this to see what your thoughts on this,
Speaker 2: or if you've thought of this in this way. I've
Speaker 2: been differentiating in my research quite a bit between grandiose
Speaker 2: narcissism and vulnerable narcissism, And what I'm seeing in my
Speaker 2: data is actually an increase in vulnerable narcissism.
Speaker 4: Makes sense.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Yeah, and I'm wondering how you, yeah, how that
Speaker 2: lands for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, you know, as you know full
Speaker 1: well that the tough part is the NPI really measures
Speaker 1: grandiose and that's been you know, the most common.
Speaker 2: That's a huge prop that's right, that's why we have
Speaker 2: to create new scales.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And then you probably don't have the data going back
Speaker 1: in time, so you know, I can see how that
Speaker 1: that's you know, it's challenging to nail down you know,
Speaker 1: the maybe the some of the evidence on that, but
Speaker 1: it I think that makes perfect sense given the other
Speaker 1: trends with self esteem going down, depression going up, and
Speaker 1: so on. And I'm curious, you know, are you using
Speaker 1: that also to explain some of the things around, like
Speaker 1: you said, the culture of victimhood?
Speaker 3: Is that?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's really where all my research is going right now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've kind of put all hands on deck on that
Speaker 2: topic because I think it's a really urgent issue and
Speaker 2: I'm going to link it to the mental health crist
Speaker 2: but yes, so not to turn the interview around on me,
Speaker 2: but as a mutual mutual inquiry and curiosity. What I
Speaker 2: find really interesting is the construct of vulnerable narcissism is
Speaker 2: a mess, and I have argued the best definition of
Speaker 2: it is just simply entitlement that is based on perceived
Speaker 2: fragility or past history of suffering. Fascinating, Yeah, because that
Speaker 2: way you can directly compare that to grandiose narcism defined
Speaker 2: as entitlement grounded in uh perceived superior inherent superiority. And
Speaker 2: therefore you can see the contrast, whereas a lot some
Speaker 2: people have a lot of out there, like neuroticism is
Speaker 2: the distinguisher but between it. But the problem is you
Speaker 2: start bringing all these other things you're not you know,
Speaker 2: neuroticism doesn't get the entitlement part, you know. So so
Speaker 2: I feel the entitlement is what's core to narcissism and
Speaker 2: where and there's a lot of like tangential UH aspects
Speaker 2: or facets that are discussed. So yeah, so when you
Speaker 2: look at it that way, yes, absolutely, I see. I've
Speaker 2: cheek thought maybe I should just call this generation the
Speaker 2: fragility generation or the fragile the fragile generation. But there
Speaker 2: is a sort of sort of entitlement based on you know,
Speaker 2: on on on a fragility, a perceived fragility that one
Speaker 2: has where they can't handle the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's I've struggled with this a lot too,
Speaker 1: because you know, people have used the label snowflakes right,
Speaker 1: and talked about fragility, and I struggle with it so
Speaker 1: much because although you know, there's a grain of truth
Speaker 1: to that, on the other hand, we're talking about a
Speaker 1: generation where there are rates of depression doubled within.
Speaker 3: An eight year period.
Speaker 1: You know, these are really serious mental health issues, and
Speaker 1: I don't want them dismiss and you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and I don't do I'm kind of uncomfortable with the
Speaker 1: idea of, you know, anything that's that's trying to to
Speaker 1: blame or to criticize based on true mental health issues.
Speaker 3: If that makes any sense, well.
Speaker 2: It makes profound sense. And I well, I personally like
Speaker 2: to stay away from the you know, coddling language. You know, yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel as compassionate as it could be. I
Speaker 2: I raised that in a in a discussion I had
Speaker 2: with Greg and John at the Comedy Seller in New.
Speaker 4: York City of all places.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. But striking that balance I
Speaker 2: find really difficult between saying things that you're feeding into
Speaker 2: a delusion. Like I think sometimes the highest form of
Speaker 2: form of kindness is not feeding into someone's delusion, And
Speaker 2: so how do we hold that up? You know, as
Speaker 2: a truth while also holding up the fact that it
Speaker 2: must really suck, like showing like, show a little compassion
Speaker 2: and perspective, taking exactly what they're feeling. What they're feeling
Speaker 2: is painful, exactly. Yeah, you know, how do you how
Speaker 2: do you hold both up at the same time and
Speaker 2: hold space for both?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: That that's exactly the challenge, because yeah, I mean, you
Speaker 1: think about gen z and their childhood and adolescents and
Speaker 1: what they've had to face, you know, not spending as
Speaker 1: much time with their friends face to face, being almost
Speaker 1: mandatory to be on social media, to have all of
Speaker 1: those pressures. You know that that's the only world that
Speaker 1: they've known. And then it's not a wonder you know
Speaker 1: that so many of them are depressed. But then, you know,
Speaker 1: does that mean we should just accept the idea that
Speaker 1: free speech is dead?
Speaker 3: I hope not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope not as well. I guess when I
Speaker 2: look at the full pattern of data among gen z,
Speaker 2: I try to understand how which ones are linked to which. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, this is statistic is fasting nearly a third
Speaker 2: of men ages eighteen to twenty five did not have
Speaker 2: sex in the last year. Now I knew that gen
Speaker 2: zers were having less sex. But actually, until I read
Speaker 2: your book, did not realize that the effect was larger
Speaker 2: for men within that age range. I did not know that,
Speaker 2: but I do. I did know that there's a call
Speaker 2: it a looneliness epidemic. I guess i'mware of using the
Speaker 2: word epidemic, but among young men there really is really
Speaker 2: sky sky high levels of loneliness. And so I guess
Speaker 2: I don't know how all these things are linked. If
Speaker 2: all the women are becoming men, I'm just saying, like,
Speaker 2: take the imagination of how these things could be linked.
Speaker 2: You know, if now all the young girls now are
Speaker 2: becoming transgender by a non binary you know, like no
Speaker 2: one wants the men and no one wants the biological
Speaker 2: men anymore.
Speaker 3: I don't think that's what's going on, though.
Speaker 2: Okay, then tell me what's going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's always it's always a
Speaker 1: little a little speculative when you're trying to get to
Speaker 1: the causes. But for the changes in sexual activity, I
Speaker 1: think some of it is more depressed. So in depression,
Speaker 1: when people are.
Speaker 2: Depressed, you think men are more depressed.
Speaker 3: Why are they more depressed?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Why do you think?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's for a lot of the
Speaker 1: same reasons that young women are depressed, is because the
Speaker 1: way that they socialize is changed in a way that's
Speaker 1: not good for mental health. So I think that that's
Speaker 1: at the core of a lot of it. So that
Speaker 1: piece is in there. Some of it is they're just
Speaker 1: taking longer to grow up. So that, as you know,
Speaker 1: is another big theme in generations about this slow life strategy,
Speaker 1: which has its advantages and disadvantages. But there are just
Speaker 1: more young men and women who at twenty or twenty one,
Speaker 1: when in previous generations they would have been sexually active,
Speaker 1: are putting that off until later in their lives. And
Speaker 1: that might not be entirely a bad thing.
Speaker 2: Are I didn't find the statistic on young women ages
Speaker 2: eighteen to twenty five. Are they having more sex than
Speaker 2: prior generations?
Speaker 3: No, it's also less.
Speaker 2: It's just I see, Okay, I was looking for that statistic. Okay,
Speaker 2: got it. So there's a lot more gender affluidity, do
Speaker 2: you think that? I mean, I mean it's so controversial
Speaker 2: when when when people propose the sort of social contagion hypothesis,
Speaker 2: transgender activists immediately tear that down and say that's transphobia,
Speaker 2: So I don't I'm asking what the data suggests. Do
Speaker 2: you think it's it's because is there some is there
Speaker 2: some cultural influences there or and or could it be
Speaker 2: that prior generations they would there would have been on
Speaker 2: those rates if it was as acceptable to be transgender
Speaker 2: and prior generations.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, that's what makes it so fascinating.
Speaker 3: We don't really know.
Speaker 4: So I think it's it's definitely true that if.
Speaker 1: You look at, say, the rise in individualism, more focus
Speaker 1: on the self, less on social rules, that more acceptance
Speaker 1: of people being transgender non binary is a very logical
Speaker 1: outcome of that cultural system. And I think that's just
Speaker 1: been growing over time.
Speaker 3: But that that is the question.
Speaker 1: Of how much of it is due to greater acceptance,
Speaker 1: And that's the theory that most people go on. But
Speaker 1: you know, you dig into it and you have to
Speaker 1: answer a couple of questions that I'm just not sure
Speaker 1: of the answers yet, Like if it's just greater acceptance,
Speaker 1: if that's really the primary driver, then why is it
Speaker 1: that identifying as transgender hasn't changed hardly at all among
Speaker 1: people who are age thirty and older. Because it hasn't
Speaker 1: it's really only been young adults where you see that
Speaker 1: huge increase, the quadrupling of those you know, identifying as
Speaker 1: trans It hasn't really happened with older people. But it's
Speaker 1: certainly possible that maybe among older people it's just their
Speaker 1: lives are more settled and it would be a much
Speaker 1: bigger disruption for them to come out as strands.
Speaker 2: Bring that down as a way to table that for
Speaker 2: my own brain, because I want to reflect on that.
Speaker 2: That is such a good point. Yeah, I guess we
Speaker 2: just don't know. We do know that there is a
Speaker 2: you know, we know culturally there's a shift in among peers.
Speaker 2: And it depends how you want to frame it. You know,
Speaker 2: you can frame it as acceptance, frame it as like,
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's peer pressure, you know, ever
Speaker 2: to sort of feel like, you know, let's say you're
Speaker 2: you know, having identity crisis is nothing new to teenagers
Speaker 2: in any generation. I'm sure. I'm sure that I'm sure
Speaker 2: a lot of silence, silent teenagers had identity crisis crises,
Speaker 2: and you know, wanting to belong, wanting to fit in,
Speaker 2: wanting to be part of, you know, a group, or
Speaker 2: you know, get special privileges you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: exactly because I'm obviously not en messed or immersed in
Speaker 2: school culture right now, you know, so I guess you
Speaker 2: just have to really look at that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard that argument, and I understand the idea
Speaker 1: of like, oh, maybe people want to fit in and
Speaker 1: find a group and so on.
Speaker 4: On the other hand, think about what trans kids and.
Speaker 1: Teens have to put up with and the amount of
Speaker 1: bullying they have to put up with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, why you think about it?
Speaker 1: That was like, I don't know that it doesn't just
Speaker 1: doesn't sound as likely.
Speaker 2: I hear you about transfer, but I'm talking about an
Speaker 2: overall global pattern of gender felidity in terms of, like
Speaker 2: you know, saying like your non binary for non binary
Speaker 2: seems to be a really profoundly new category than the
Speaker 2: prior generations. You know. You know, I don't I could
Speaker 2: see someone who's having a real serious identity crisis sort
Speaker 2: of feeling such pressure to like cling to an identity
Speaker 2: male or female that they don't feel a resonance with.
Speaker 2: I can see how the non binary gender is. It
Speaker 2: can be very relaxing. M Yeah, yeah, I could see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that that's just been made possible
Speaker 1: by the the all of the chefs you know that
Speaker 1: have happened culturally around equality and gender and freedom and individualism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Oh my god, so much data here. Well, okay,
Speaker 2: why don't you tell me some of the most surprising
Speaker 2: facts in terms of some myths of generational differences that
Speaker 2: you came across. You're like, Wow, that myth really needs
Speaker 2: to be debunked. Can you debunk some myths for me? Please?
Speaker 1: I'll try so, you know, I think there's one is
Speaker 1: there's this really common perception that boomers are all really
Speaker 1: economically successful and that income inequality was something that they
Speaker 1: really started and that you know, boomers became successful and
Speaker 1: then climbed up the ladder and pulled it up after
Speaker 1: they had climbed it. So the millennials, you know, couldn't
Speaker 1: be successful in terms out that whole narrative just falls apart,
Speaker 1: you know, very very quickly when you start looking at
Speaker 1: at the data. So, first, sure, a lot of boomers
Speaker 1: have done well for themselves, but there's a big segment,
Speaker 1: especially those who did not go to college, where the
Speaker 1: economy changed underneath them and they found themselves in a
Speaker 1: pretty difficult situation. And that's why you get things like
Speaker 1: a lot more depression, especially among those who are lower
Speaker 1: income and have less education among boomers.
Speaker 3: And then the.
Speaker 1: Findings of Case and Deton, the famous findings of the
Speaker 1: mortality rate among middle aged Americans starting to go up,
Speaker 1: especially those who are white and not college educated, and
Speaker 1: that's driven by boomers. So you can see the despair
Speaker 1: in certain segments of that generation because they are not
Speaker 1: the kings of the world that they're you know, are
Speaker 1: sometimes perceived to be as boomers. They're very much on
Speaker 1: the other side of that, and you know, with these challenges,
Speaker 1: and then on the flip side of that is the
Speaker 1: idea about millennials struggling, that very very common narrative everywhere
Speaker 1: online about millennials that they not do as well as
Speaker 1: their parents, they have to have side gigs, they'll never
Speaker 1: own houses. Well, median incomes among twenty six to thirty
Speaker 1: nine year olds are at all time highs corrected for inflation.
Speaker 1: Home ownership rates virtually identical for millennials, gen xers and boomers.
Speaker 1: It's not all completely rosy. A lot of those income
Speaker 1: gains have been driven by women, which sounds like a
Speaker 1: good thing, but then that means, say, a heterosexual couple
Speaker 1: wants to have kids, then they have to pay for daycare.
Speaker 1: So there's definitely challenges in there. But that core idea
Speaker 1: that millennials are not economically successful is exactly wrong.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, that's good to dispel the idea of this
Speaker 2: New York Times HITDL and I saw thirty seven year
Speaker 2: olds are afraid of the twenty three year olds who
Speaker 2: work for them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good, Haveline, Oh my.
Speaker 2: Gosh, not talking about that many years different, you know,
Speaker 2: in the whole scheme of the universe, and yet there
Speaker 2: seems to be such a golf.
Speaker 1: You know, So that's that's that's millennials who are now
Speaker 1: the adults in the room, and they're trying to get
Speaker 1: used to that, just like Jen Exter said, to get
Speaker 1: used to it and still kind of aren't the gen Z.
Speaker 2: They're trying to figure out gen Z. I see this
Speaker 2: in the university setting with a millennium and order trying
Speaker 2: to understand the gen Zers, trying to understand what are
Speaker 2: the kids. Now, there are some people who really think
Speaker 2: probably Jonathan Hayden, Greg g Gano would probably think that
Speaker 2: they're giving in too much. It's sort of there's sort
Speaker 2: of like a one model of thinking about this that's
Speaker 2: almost like a fight or a competition, you know, of
Speaker 2: like you know, you know, just do we give into
Speaker 2: the gen Z demands and the crazy demands. But then
Speaker 2: there's there must there's certainly another view of a lot
Speaker 2: of professors who are like, wow, there's so much wisdom
Speaker 2: here in the gen zs. And I've seen the whole
Speaker 2: gamut as a professor, you know, across in all my
Speaker 2: faculty meetings, you know, the fact meanings there, they're divided.
Speaker 2: But I'm just laying out different perspectives and conceptualizations. A
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of my friends at Barnard College
Speaker 2: at Colombia, you know, really see a lot of are like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you go gen Zers. They're really shaking things up in
Speaker 2: a way that needs to be shaken up. They're not like,
Speaker 2: ohver coddling them, you know. So I see I see
Speaker 2: different different perspectives on the table, and so it's almost
Speaker 2: as if like you know, even taking the gen Zers
Speaker 2: out of the equation like the other uh, the other
Speaker 2: generations don't really agree. Not everyone agrees with each other
Speaker 2: and how they should treat the gen z Ers or
Speaker 2: how they should view them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: You know, last five or six years are given a
Speaker 1: lot of talks on generational differences, and of course being
Speaker 1: a faculty member, one of the most common audiences is
Speaker 1: my fellow faculty members on various campuses. And this is
Speaker 1: the essential tension. I think it's been true for.
Speaker 2: The social tension I feel. I feel it on campus.
Speaker 1: It is because you have to figure out how much
Speaker 1: are you going to change your teaching and how you're
Speaker 1: presenting things for this generation.
Speaker 3: But then if you're completely changing you I mean to
Speaker 3: be a.
Speaker 1: Little extreme about it, and if you give the students
Speaker 1: exactly what they want, it'd be maybe in some cases
Speaker 1: anyway and a for no work. Maybe we don't want
Speaker 1: to do that. You know, we have to figure out
Speaker 1: what's good for them in the long term. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean we should be sticks in the mud and not
Speaker 1: change at all. So there's that balance, like how much
Speaker 1: were we going to change in our teaching and then
Speaker 1: how much we're not going to change. But we still
Speaker 1: have to prepare students for the workplace and grad school
Speaker 1: and that we can't give in too much. But you know,
Speaker 1: that is that is what was one of my goals,
Speaker 1: certainly in writing this book is to start with that
Speaker 1: piece of understanding of yes, we have things in common,
Speaker 1: but here are some of the differences, and then maybe
Speaker 1: helps you know a little bit more what your students
Speaker 1: experienced before they reached your classroom.
Speaker 2: I love your I love your compassion, and I really
Speaker 2: like the way you think I do. I realized that
Speaker 2: when I say things like I think that this is
Speaker 2: the generation of vulnerable narcissism, even though I think it's true,
Speaker 2: I realized that obviously calling people narcissists is not a flattering,
Speaker 2: really you know, kind way of trying a human But
Speaker 2: if we can more finally differentiate what really counts technically
Speaker 2: is entitlement, because I think that we do see some
Speaker 2: real vulnerable narcissism and what isn't entitlement, but what isn't
Speaker 2: really entitlement? But are adults kind of saying, oh, that's
Speaker 2: entitled kids, you know, But actually the kids have a
Speaker 2: good point. Yeah, sorting out those that's the nuance that
Speaker 2: I like, you know, and I feel like I get
Speaker 2: the sense you do too. But you know what I'm saying, like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no completely, I mean I think that that plays
Speaker 1: out in the classroom, It plays out in the workplace.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's really it's really something to watch
Speaker 1: in the political arena as well, because you know, where's
Speaker 1: where's the line? You know, Oh, these kids are so
Speaker 1: entitled or I disagree with them because they're across the
Speaker 1: political spectrum for me. Right, So, like if you're a
Speaker 1: Republican and you see young people saying we universal health care, Oh,
Speaker 1: that's an entitlement.
Speaker 3: How entitled is that? Right?
Speaker 1: But then a Democrat might think, no, this is good.
Speaker 1: They're fighting for the change that they want and they
Speaker 1: believe in this, so you know, it's it's it is
Speaker 1: really classic social psychology, isn't it That How you view
Speaker 1: it depends on your own attitude.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I personally as a profess teaching as a professor
Speaker 2: across generations, have noticed a shift in this sense. I
Speaker 2: noticed that a lot of students expect now in a
Speaker 2: way they never did before. That if they say that
Speaker 2: certain materials too hard or it's like difficult, making them
Speaker 2: uncomfortable having to do the homework, therefore I should be like, oh,
Speaker 2: no problem, here's your extension. And to me, there is
Speaker 2: a little bit of entitlement there, you know, And I
Speaker 2: try so hard to be compassionates, but especially it was like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, my parents passed away about you know,
Speaker 2: give me an excuse. But what I'm seeing now sometimes
Speaker 2: are no excuses. Other then, like I had an assignment
Speaker 2: once from like just think of one question a week
Speaker 2: on the readings that you did, and I literally would
Speaker 2: have some students be like, Professor Kaufman, that's unreasonable request.
Speaker 2: I can't think of any questions to ask. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: you're at an Ivy League school. You can't go up
Speaker 2: with one question. I'm sorry, but like, no, no, that's
Speaker 2: not okay.
Speaker 4: Right exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's that's one of the It's just
Speaker 1: such a huge challenge, you know, being a faculty member
Speaker 1: that you want to be fair to all your students,
Speaker 1: but then there are sometimes these extenuating circumstances and where
Speaker 1: do you draw that Where do you draw that line?
Speaker 1: And then you know, COVID was a whole other wrench
Speaker 1: in that because that then you know, we had to
Speaker 1: be more flexible just the way it was, and so
Speaker 1: now we're like, well.
Speaker 3: Now we do it roll that back? And I don't know.
Speaker 1: My basic philosophy is as much compassion as possible in
Speaker 1: the classroom to have to be able to have an
Speaker 1: open discussion, but then you know, when it comes to
Speaker 1: actually getting that work done, you have to be a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a hard ass.
Speaker 2: Really, I mean at university, like certain ex base expectations
Speaker 2: at most base level. Is it true that we this
Speaker 2: is the most number of living generations alive at the
Speaker 2: same time than ever in human history.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because because technology has changed so much, the generations
Speaker 1: have gotten shorter now, you know, as we discussed. So
Speaker 1: it's somewhat arbitrary, but I think you can certainly make
Speaker 1: a case for the cultural change of the last twenty
Speaker 1: to thirty years being pretty considerable. And so that's why
Speaker 1: we have the shorter generations, and that's why we have
Speaker 1: six living American generations right now.
Speaker 2: That's incredible, That's incredible. And I also didn't know that
Speaker 2: Biden is the first ever silent generation president. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, how's he in touch with anyone? Anyone?
Speaker 2: I guess some whould argue he's not, you know, in
Speaker 2: some political sides. But that's that's incredible.
Speaker 1: And I mean, in general, our political leaders are older
Speaker 1: now than they were a generation.
Speaker 2: They're getting older and older. Yeah, they're getting like every
Speaker 2: new presence now like it, our next person's gonna be
Speaker 2: one hundred and five years old.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, this is the debate, right you know, is
Speaker 1: that good because with age comm's wisdom or is it
Speaker 1: that they're out of touch? And you know that's going
Speaker 1: to vary depending on the individual and so on. But
Speaker 1: you know, as a gen x er, I can't tell
Speaker 1: you there was you know, when I made the graphs
Speaker 1: showing that that boomers really were blocking the way of
Speaker 1: Gen X into political leadership, Yep, there's there. That's when
Speaker 1: it was a little hard for me to keep my
Speaker 1: opinion out of it. I tried as much as I
Speaker 1: possibly can't have to keep my opinion out of it.
Speaker 1: But with that I was like, yep, I knew it.
Speaker 1: There was definitely some boomer blockage of Gen xers, and
Speaker 1: partially just because they're a bigger generation, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: explain all of it. Even if you take that into account,
Speaker 1: In both politics and in business, Bloomers are hanging onto
Speaker 1: their leadership positions longer than previous generations, and then Gen
Speaker 1: X isn't.
Speaker 3: Able to move up.
Speaker 1: Although's some speculation gen X may not want want to
Speaker 1: move up because they're just not into.
Speaker 4: That as much.
Speaker 2: So interesting politically, why does it feel like the right,
Speaker 2: like conservatives like get triggered by gen zers because because
Speaker 2: do you see how I turned that around? Do you
Speaker 2: see how I turn that around? Do you see how
Speaker 2: I flip flip the trigger thing? But it feels like
Speaker 2: they get really triggered by gen Z's.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's that is one way you could
Speaker 4: use that verb. Well, conservatism by definition.
Speaker 1: Means you want things to stay the same. It's opposed
Speaker 1: to progressivism, where you want things to change. And generally
Speaker 1: there are generational differences, you know, based on when you're
Speaker 1: born that push people, you know, more toward democrat or
Speaker 1: liberal and republican or conservative. But there is the general
Speaker 1: principle that people become more conservative as they get older,
Speaker 1: partially because they're like, okay, that's enough change, you know,
Speaker 1: we can stop now, stop the world.
Speaker 4: I want to get off.
Speaker 1: And then young people say, no, you know, we want
Speaker 1: more change. And so that's that's I think why there's
Speaker 1: that generational tension, particularly with older conservatives. Older progressors are
Speaker 1: often like, no, I love the kids.
Speaker 2: Yes, no, well that's right, And you see that split
Speaker 2: on the faculty as well. Yeah, so my question is
Speaker 2: then Generation X had the consistently most republican generation. So
Speaker 2: were the Boomers like triggered by Generation X? I guess
Speaker 2: my question in a parallel argument.
Speaker 1: Boomers have such an odd political trajectory. They started as very,
Speaker 1: very liberal and then switched to be conservative seemingly almost overnight,
Speaker 1: although it was, you know, a linear change that took
Speaker 1: a few decades to really roll out, but almost like
Speaker 1: with Reagan in the eighties, something clicked and their general
Speaker 1: tendency switched away from being progressive to being more conservative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so interesting. And then the Silent generation, the
Speaker 2: leaders of the civil rights movement, feminist movement, early gay
Speaker 2: rights movement were actually silence, not the Boomers.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: So why don't the silence get the credit that they
Speaker 2: deserve for making progress social progress?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I think they just they just didn't make.
Speaker 1: As much noise as the Boomers, partially because of their
Speaker 1: generational size and partially just because of their kind of
Speaker 1: generational personality. There's such fascinating generation because many of them
Speaker 1: married young, had their kids young. You know, they were
Speaker 1: the young people of the fifties and early sixties where
Speaker 1: that was kind of the old post war set of
Speaker 1: values and ways you know, of living your life. Yet
Speaker 1: at the edges they were the activists. They were the
Speaker 1: ones who got the laws changed. So Martin Luther King Junior,
Speaker 1: Ruth Bader Ginsburg both silentce you know, and most of
Speaker 1: the leaders of the civil rights and the feminist movement,
Speaker 1: on the gay rights movement as well, those were mostly silence.
Speaker 1: So the way I ended up parsing it in the
Speaker 1: book is that the silence for the most part changed
Speaker 1: the laws, and then the boomers changed hearts and minds
Speaker 1: because they actually lived the changes that the silence started
Speaker 1: in terms of race and gender and sexual orientation.
Speaker 2: I like that. I like that we have not really
Speaker 2: talked at all about the Greatest generation or the Alpha generation.
Speaker 2: These are two that I want to add to it.
Speaker 2: Maybe your next book, well somehow add those too. Let's
Speaker 2: first start with the Greatest generation, which is the one
Speaker 2: before the silent generation. Often because of the greatest because
Speaker 2: it's thought they've suffered the most or they've kind of
Speaker 2: been through the most epic and most downtrodden events. But
Speaker 2: could one make the case that with COVID and that
Speaker 2: maybe gen Z is the new Great generation.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean that kind of goes back to the
Speaker 1: idea that generations come in cycles, which I don't think
Speaker 1: is true based on the data that we have. And
Speaker 1: I think pandemics are different from wars. Wars tend to
Speaker 1: bring people together to fight against the common enemy, and
Speaker 1: the pandemic drove us apart if anything. I mean, it
Speaker 1: could have been that model of a going to band together,
Speaker 1: but that's not how it turned out. And that means
Speaker 1: kind of the nature of pandemics too. Everybody is the
Speaker 1: enemy because it's contagious for one thing, and then the
Speaker 1: stakes are so high in terms of the political decisions
Speaker 1: that not everybody's going to be happy. So that's how
Speaker 1: that's how it ended up. And so I think those
Speaker 1: are two pretty different events. Plus, you know, my main
Speaker 1: thesis in the book is that those events are not
Speaker 1: going to have as big of an impact as the
Speaker 1: changes in technology.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the change of technology are obviously going to
Speaker 2: even you know, going on and the next one hundred years.
Speaker 2: It will be so interesting to see what happens there.
Speaker 2: So then let's talk about, Yeah, the Alpha generation and beyond,
Speaker 2: how do you see the rise of AI as maybe
Speaker 2: affecting generational differences, especially when we get to I don't
Speaker 2: think we're that far away from cyborg territory. You know,
Speaker 2: we're going to have the cyborg generation someday, do you think.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, And I think you know that that's
Speaker 1: the stuff with your chat, GPT and so on. That
Speaker 1: didn't even enter the scene until I turned in the book,
Speaker 1: so I hadn't had the chance to really consider, you know,
Speaker 1: how that that might change. You know this, this next
Speaker 1: very young generation's still mostly in elementary school, and some
Speaker 1: haven't even been born yet, that's born twenty thirteen and later.
Speaker 1: So I actually call them polars after political polarization and
Speaker 1: the melting polar ice caps Alphas is based on the
Speaker 1: idea that you know, we're going to do all the letters,
Speaker 1: and then we had gen Z and then we ran
Speaker 1: out of letters, so to go back to the beginning
Speaker 1: of the alphabet and start to use the Greek alphabet.
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of the letters overall, so
Speaker 1: I'm hoping eventually away from them.
Speaker 2: Is that where were its own proposed alpha? Is that?
Speaker 2: Is that what's on the list for the next one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a lot of markers when they
Speaker 1: when they talk about them, that's the label that they use.
Speaker 1: So yeah, a couple of times in a row now
Speaker 1: I've tried to say, let's get away from the letters,
Speaker 1: and I haven't been successful, but I'm gonna keep trying.
Speaker 2: There is something really profound about the fact that this
Speaker 2: is the you know, the longest all five generations have
Speaker 2: all lived together, and we all feaced a really significant
Speaker 2: catastrophe together. So, like, ending this interview, can we be
Speaker 2: a little bit more like uniting than divisive? Isn't there
Speaker 2: a great bonding experience that, you know, even that we
Speaker 2: can all have with each other. I mean, we all
Speaker 2: went through this. It's not like just the the gen
Speaker 2: Zer sometimes actors that day they're the only ones who
Speaker 2: went through crap. But we all went through this together.
Speaker 2: You know, what can we do to kind of like
Speaker 2: all really just show compared and for each other, no
Speaker 2: matter of the age.
Speaker 3: I hope we can do that.
Speaker 1: I think it's very It's very tough though, because the
Speaker 1: pandemic did really exacerbate the political polarization and the generational conflicts.
Speaker 1: You know that we're already there, But what I would
Speaker 1: really really like to see is just trying to turn
Speaker 1: more toward more positivity if possible. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: Pollyanna stuff or you know, not recognizing that we have
Speaker 1: problems to solve, but the really pervasive negativity across all generations,
Speaker 1: maybe in particular gen Z, but pretty much everybody these
Speaker 1: days thinking, you know, we're on the wrong track and
Speaker 1: we can't solve these problems, and this is the worst
Speaker 1: time ever. Can we have some recognition this is actually
Speaker 1: a really great time to be alive. But yeah, we
Speaker 1: have challenges, but consider what it would have been like
Speaker 1: to live two hundred years ago or one hundred years
Speaker 1: ago without the conveniences that we have, and try to
Speaker 1: appreciate technology that's made our lives better.
Speaker 4: We'll trying to rein in some of the technology that
Speaker 4: has maybe.
Speaker 1: Not made our lives better. And of course the thing
Speaker 1: I talk about the most with that is just putting
Speaker 1: more regulation around social media, especially with kids, and maybe.
Speaker 3: That will help.
Speaker 1: It'll help, maybe that'll help with mental health, maybe that'll
Speaker 1: help with our politics.
Speaker 2: Yes, now you talk about you're focusing on technology, but
Speaker 2: I think it from a Stephen Pink Stephen Pinker enlightenment
Speaker 2: now perspective, He's documented in all the many ways that
Speaker 2: society has shown progress over the years, you know, many
Speaker 2: multi multitude of ways, including gender rights, you know, and
Speaker 2: and racial you know, uh, and.
Speaker 1: The and the overall decline and aggression and violence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: made that case in the in the other book, And
Speaker 1: I mean, that's.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's all.
Speaker 4: It's all true.
Speaker 1: I think it's just so easy to take for granted
Speaker 1: the good things, and I think that's human nature in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways. Right. But I get a little
Speaker 1: concern when I see people saying, oh, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: that's the worst time. Really, is that really worse in
Speaker 1: the beginning of the pandemic? Is it worse in the
Speaker 1: Great recession? Is it worse than the eighties when we
Speaker 1: thought Russia was going to drop the bomb?
Speaker 4: In any moment, I don't think it is.
Speaker 2: Well, that's great. I just want to end on that note.
Speaker 2: I want to end on some sort of you know,
Speaker 2: uniting note there and thank you for your incredible legendary
Speaker 2: work in our field of psychology. This is the Psychology Podcast,
Speaker 2: so I have to thank you for your legendary work
Speaker 2: in the field. I'm glad I finally got a chance
Speaker 2: to talk to you.
Speaker 4: Thanks, thank you for what you do as well.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to this episode
Speaker 2: of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in
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