Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future
Generations is Jean Twenge's 2023 book analyzing survey data from roughly 39 million people across six living generations to argue that technology, more than any single historic event, is the primary force separating one generation's outlook from the next. In its Gen Z chapters, Twenge extends the case she made in iGen, presenting updated charts linking the post-2012 rise in smartphone ownership and social-media use among American teens to parallel increases in depression and loneliness and to less in-person socializing and sleep. She frames these as associations documented across multiple independent surveys, not a single proven mechanism, and situates the Gen Z mental-health trend alongside broader generational data on work, politics, and family life. TechKids Foundation cites this book as Twenge's most data-extensive update to the smartphone-generation argument, and as the source for figures she later cited in her 2026 Senate testimony.
Twenge, Jean M. Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future. Atria Books, April 25, 2023.