CONCEPT
Slow Life Strategy
Twenge's framework for the generational pattern in which successive cohorts defer the risks and responsibilities of adulthood — not because they are unavailable but because the environment no longer requires them — producing the delay of developmental milestones across iGen and the pattern that shapes how the cohort encounters AI.
The slow life strategy describes the generational trajectory in which each successive American cohort since the 1970s has obtained driver's licenses later, held first jobs later, initiated romantic relationships later, and achieved financial independence later than the cohort before. The pattern is not caused by economic constraint alone — it persists across socioeconomic strata and is visible in measures that income alone cannot explain. Twenge's interpretation draws on life history theory from evolutionary biology: when environments are stable, resource-rich, and low-mortality, organisms adopt slow life strategies with extended development and later reproduction. When environments are harsh and unpredictable, they adopt fast strategies. Affluent postwar America produced the conditions for a slow life strategy, and successive generations have extended the slowing. iGen represents the most extended slow life cohort measured, with consequences for how the generation metabolizes risk, difficulty, and the demands of adult decision-making.
