things like 9-11 or wars or pandemics or recessions, and that certainly has some influence on people,

but not as much as technology and technological change.

Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast. Today we welcome Jean Twenge to the podcast.

Jean is professor of psychology at San Diego State University. She frequently gives talks and

seminars on generational differences in technology based on a data set of 39 million people.

Her audiences have included college faculty and staff, parent groups, military personnel,

camp directors, and corporate executives. Her work has been repeatedly featured by the media,

and she has authored more than 180 scientific publications and books, including IGEN,

Generation Me, and the Narcissism Epidemic. Her latest book, which is her magnum opus,

is called Generations. In this episode, I talked to Jean Twenge about the real differences

between the generations. Did you know that our current time has the most number of living

generations to coexist ever in the history of humanity? Unfortunately, there is often conflict and

missed communication between them. According to Jean, this is largely due to how the advancement

of tech has shaped major life experiences. She shares interesting statistics about each cohort,

and debugs common misconceptions about baby boomers, millennials, Gen Z, and others.

We also touch on the topics of narcissism, polarization, mental health, gender identity,

and compassion. So without further ado, I bring you Jean Twenge.

Nice to finally meet you. Yeah, I feel the same. It's been a while, but it's a good timing because

you're magnum opus. Yes, it is. Absolutely. Wow. Wow. Generations, the real differences between

Gen Z, millennials, Gen X, boomers, and silence, and what they mean for America's future.

No big deal. No big deal. Wow. I mean, we'll talk about a synthesis of data.

You know, we talk about like, you know, in grad school, it's like, if I have more than 200 participants,

...