Labor-Saving Devices, Longer Life Spans Allowed Millennials, Gen Z’ers To ‘Adult’ At A Later Age: WSJ Book Review: “Generations,” by Jean Twenge

From The Wall Street Journal, Books & Arts, "‘Generations’ Review: Growing Up Is Hard to Do: Labor-saving devices and longer life spans have given Millennials and Gen Z’ers the gift of time. They ‘adult’ at a later age than their parents did." by Matthew Hennessey:

*** An old theory has it that each generation adopts its group characteristics by way of the shared experience of “major events at impressionable ages,” as Ms. [Jean] Twenge [psychology professor at San Diego State University] puts it in “Generations,” her latest book.*** Ms. Twenge doesn’t buy this theory. “History is not just a series of events,” she writes. ... She has her own theory: Technological change is the main driver of generational differences. Unlike wars, pandemics and economic cycles, she notes, “technological change is linear.” It moves toward ever more sophistication and convenience. It has the power to change things completely, making our lives “strikingly different from the lives of those in decades past.”

By “technology” she doesn’t just mean microchips and satellites. She means everything from air-conditioning to sanitation to birth control to architecture. The progressive development of technology shapes us, she writes, primarily by nudging us toward a greater degree of self-reliance—Ms. Twenge calls it “individualism”—and a “slower life trajectory.” Every generation has had the privilege of living “longer lives with less drudgery” than the lives of their parents and grandparents.

The “slow life” thesis may do more to explain the friction between the generations than anything else. [Emphais added.] ... Young people can put off education, career, marriage and child-rearing in ways their parents and grandparents couldn’t. Labor-saving devices and longer life spans have given Millennials and Gen Z’ers the “priceless gift of time.” Why so many of them choose to use it watching cat videos and filming themselves dancing is one of life’s great riddles. *** Particularly refreshing is Ms. Twenge’s dismantling of Millennials’ frequent claim that they are doing worse than every other generation at similar stages of life. [Emphais added.] The argument that 30-something Millennials have been “screwed economically” is “treated as close to gospel,” Ms. Twenge writes, but it’s mostly based on “outdated statistics, often from the early 2010s, when the economy was still recovering from the Great Recession.” Ms. Twenge has new numbers, and they show the opposite of the grim picture typically painted by mopey Millennials. “By 2019, households headed by Millennials actually made more money than Silents, Boomers, and Gen X’ers at the same age—and yes, that’s after the numbers are adjusted for inflation.”

If Millennials think they’re poorer than other generations, they have their own indulgence in slow-life habits to blame. Instead of getting jobs and getting married, many Millennials spent their 20s eating avocado toast, meandering through graduate school and working in the gig economy. In the aggregate, such choices have led to a perception of a generational economic rout. This perception is of course fueled by Twitter hyperbole, but social media isn’t social science.