Dating is in decline among the "i-Generation", study finds
The end of young love: Dating is in decline among the
"i-Generation", study finds
The decline in dating corresponds to dwindling sexual
activity among this cohort, Prof Twenge has found
By Camilla Turner, education editor 11 SEPTEMBER 2017 • 9:30PM
Dating is in decline among young people, a major study
has found.
Those born between 1995 and 2012, dubbed the
“i-Generation”, are noticeably less interested in romance than their millennial
predecessors, according to a new book by Jean Twenge, a psychology professor at
San Diego State University.
Teenagers from this group have grown up with social media
and smart phones, meaning they spend far more time socialising with one another
online than they do in person.
The decline in dating corresponds to dwindling sexual
activity among this cohort, Prof Twenge has found.
Drawing on surveys of 11 million young people and a
series of in-depth interviews she found that teenagers in their final year of
school are going out less often than 13-year-olds did as recently as 2009.
Prof Twenge also noted that 56 per cent of 14 to
18-year-olds went out on dates in 2015 whereas for Generation X and Baby
Boomers, it was around 85 per cent.
Meanwhile, sexual activity among 14 and 15-year-olds has
dropped by almost 40 per cent since 1991. The average teenager now has had sex
for the first time by the time they are 17-years-old, a full year later than
the average generation X.
The teenage birth rate hit an all-time low in 2016, down
67 per cent since its modern peak in 1991.
“Teens are spending an enormous amount of time, primarily
on their smart phones and communicating with their friends electronically,”
Prof Twenge told BBC Radio Four’s Today programme.
“What that’s meant is they are spending less time
interacting with their friends in person, hanging out with their friends.”
Her latest book, titled iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected
Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely
Unprepared for Adulthood–and What That Means for the Rest of Us analyses on a
series of nationally representative surveys of American youth.
Millennials, who were born between the early 1908s and
the early 2000s, are characterised by their socially liberal views and for
rejecting the attitudes of their predecessors, the Baby Boomers and Generation
X.
The i-Generation has a distinct set of traits, which are
heavily influenced by the fact that they have grown up surrounded by social
media and smart phones.
Children of the i-Generation are safer but more mentally
unstable than their millennial predecessors, Prof Twenge said.
Youth who spend three hours a day or more on electronic
devices are 35 percent more likely to have a risk factor for suicide, such as
making a suicide plan.
Since 2007, the homicide rate among teenagers has
declined, but the suicide rate has increased meaning that for the first time in
almost quarter of a century, young people are more likely to kill themselves
than they are one another.
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