we evolved because it’s what we can do
it’s what we should do
Today Tomorrow forever
people love to talk about generations so
you’ve probably heard some terms in this
area before like baby boomer and we can
see by a show of hands how many baby
boomers do we have in the audience today
all right leave your hands in the air
for just a moment because I want the
rest of the room to see that not all of
you look like these people at least not
today thank you
baby boomers were the hippies of the 60s
who became the yuppies of the 80s that
are now many of our leaders then we have
Gen X I’m a gen Xer oh man my fellow Gen
Xers are out there okay and generational
bonus points if you can name the movie
rally bites that’s right from 1994 back
when we got the reputation for being
slackers
then there’s Millennials how many
Millennials are joining us today okay
love you so it took some time to find a
good picture of Millennials I like this
one it has the technology it has the guy
with the crazy beard they look like
they’re in Brooklyn maybe they just had
some artisanal cheese or maybe according
to the internet some avocado toast
then there’s ijen so if you’re ijen
don’t just hold up your hand hold up
your phone and let’s see of our Jenner’s
yeah so almost all of you have a phone
and almost all of them are smartphones
ijen is the first generation to spend
their entire adolescence with
smartphones and that has had ripple
effects across many areas of their lives
and that is also the topic of my book
called ijen so how do we know how
generations differ from each other for
the most part it’s by asking teens to
tell us about their experiences and how
they’re feeling in large national
surveys that are done every year several
of them go back all the way to the 70s
that’s a powerful method because it
allows
to see boomers Gen Xers Millennials and
ijen at the same age when they were
young so you can see what’s generational
and cultural change
apart from age or just being young they
are very large all told they add up to
about 11 million people so I’ve been
doing Studies on generational
differences for about 25 years so I got
used to changes that would grow slowly
and steadily over time but then around
2010 or 2011 I started to see some
changes that were much more sudden I had
really never seen anything like it so
for example teens became less likely to
go out without their parents as often
they were getting together with their
friends less often more started to say
that they felt left out or that they
felt lonely more started to say they
felt like they couldn’t do anything
right that their life wasn’t useful that
they didn’t enjoy life a national
screening study found a 50% increase in
major depressive disorder between 2011
and 2015 among teens major depressive
disorder with severe impairment shows a
similar pattern most concerning of all
the suicide rate for 12 to 14 year olds
has doubled since 2007 I think this
means we have to ask the question why
what happened between 2010 and 2015 that
might have caused these trends so one
answer to what happened is that this
happened
you might have your own memory sometime
around 2011 or 2012 of being in a public
place looking up and realizing that
everybody else was looking at their
phone the percentage of Americans who
owned a smartphone crossed 50% in 2012
by far the largest change in teens lives
since 2010 has been that more of them
got smartphones and they spent more time
online and on social media
you can see the time sequence here
here’s teen depression smartphone
ownership and the number of days number
of hours per day the teens spend online
on the other hand economic factors don’t
line up so unemployment for example was
actually going down over this time that
teen depression was going up so the next
question is our teens who spend a lot of
time online thriving or are they
struggling well they’re more likely to
not sleep enough
they are 71% more likely to have at
least one risk factor for suicide said
says such as feeling sad or hopeless for
two weeks thinking about suicide or
having attempted suicide in the past and
they are twice as likely to be unhappy
there’s a photographer who takes
pictures of people on the street who are
looking at their phones in short they do
not look happy they do not look happy
here’s the good news you don’t have to
give up your phone use your phone for
all the great things that it can do for
an hour or two a day and then go and
live your life go for a run or a swim
watch a sunset get some sleep
go see a friend not on snapchat but in
person watch the expression on your
friends face hear the tone in your
friends voice give your friend a hug in
short let your phone be a tool you use
not a tool that uses you thank you very
much
[Applause]
it’s what we should do
Today Tomorrow forever
people love to talk about generations so
you’ve probably heard some terms in this
area before like baby boomer and we can
see by a show of hands how many baby
boomers do we have in the audience today
all right leave your hands in the air
for just a moment because I want the
rest of the room to see that not all of
you look like these people at least not
today thank you
baby boomers were the hippies of the 60s
who became the yuppies of the 80s that
are now many of our leaders then we have
Gen X I’m a gen Xer oh man my fellow Gen
Xers are out there okay and generational
bonus points if you can name the movie
rally bites that’s right from 1994 back
when we got the reputation for being
slackers
then there’s Millennials how many
Millennials are joining us today okay
love you so it took some time to find a
good picture of Millennials I like this
one it has the technology it has the guy
with the crazy beard they look like
they’re in Brooklyn maybe they just had
some artisanal cheese or maybe according
to the internet some avocado toast
then there’s ijen so if you’re ijen
don’t just hold up your hand hold up
your phone and let’s see of our Jenner’s
yeah so almost all of you have a phone
and almost all of them are smartphones
ijen is the first generation to spend
their entire adolescence with
smartphones and that has had ripple
effects across many areas of their lives
and that is also the topic of my book
called ijen so how do we know how
generations differ from each other for
the most part it’s by asking teens to
tell us about their experiences and how
they’re feeling in large national
surveys that are done every year several
of them go back all the way to the 70s
that’s a powerful method because it
allows
to see boomers Gen Xers Millennials and
ijen at the same age when they were
young so you can see what’s generational
and cultural change
apart from age or just being young they
are very large all told they add up to
about 11 million people so I’ve been
doing Studies on generational
differences for about 25 years so I got
used to changes that would grow slowly
and steadily over time but then around
2010 or 2011 I started to see some
changes that were much more sudden I had
really never seen anything like it so
for example teens became less likely to
go out without their parents as often
they were getting together with their
friends less often more started to say
that they felt left out or that they
felt lonely more started to say they
felt like they couldn’t do anything
right that their life wasn’t useful that
they didn’t enjoy life a national
screening study found a 50% increase in
major depressive disorder between 2011
and 2015 among teens major depressive
disorder with severe impairment shows a
similar pattern most concerning of all
the suicide rate for 12 to 14 year olds
has doubled since 2007 I think this
means we have to ask the question why
what happened between 2010 and 2015 that
might have caused these trends so one
answer to what happened is that this
happened
you might have your own memory sometime
around 2011 or 2012 of being in a public
place looking up and realizing that
everybody else was looking at their
phone the percentage of Americans who
owned a smartphone crossed 50% in 2012
by far the largest change in teens lives
since 2010 has been that more of them
got smartphones and they spent more time
online and on social media
you can see the time sequence here
here’s teen depression smartphone
ownership and the number of days number
of hours per day the teens spend online
on the other hand economic factors don’t
line up so unemployment for example was
actually going down over this time that
teen depression was going up so the next
question is our teens who spend a lot of
time online thriving or are they
struggling well they’re more likely to
not sleep enough
they are 71% more likely to have at
least one risk factor for suicide said
says such as feeling sad or hopeless for
two weeks thinking about suicide or
having attempted suicide in the past and
they are twice as likely to be unhappy
there’s a photographer who takes
pictures of people on the street who are
looking at their phones in short they do
not look happy they do not look happy
here’s the good news you don’t have to
give up your phone use your phone for
all the great things that it can do for
an hour or two a day and then go and
live your life go for a run or a swim
watch a sunset get some sleep
go see a friend not on snapchat but in
person watch the expression on your
friends face hear the tone in your
friends voice give your friend a hug in
short let your phone be a tool you use
not a tool that uses you thank you very
much
[Applause]
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