CONCEPT
iGen
Twenge's name for the generational cohort born roughly between 1995 and 2012 — the first generation to spend its entire adolescence with smartphones, and the cohort whose psychological trajectory diverged measurably from every prior American generation.
iGen — also called Gen Z — is the generational cohort Twenge identified through the 2012 inflection and subsequent longitudinal tracking. What distinguishes iGen from prior cohorts is not any single trait but a constellation: elevated anxiety and depression, diminished self-reported agency, reduced face-to-face social interaction, delayed developmental milestones, lower intrinsic motivation, and the specific psychological profile produced by adolescence conducted primarily through screens. iGen is not a pathologized generation — many of its members are thriving, and the cohort shows genuine strengths in tolerance, pragmatism, and safety-consciousness. But the aggregate trajectory on measures of well-being, agency, and engagement points downward from previous generations, and the specific vulnerabilities iGen carries shape how the cohort is encountering AI.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The iGen cohort is the first generation whose developmental trajectory can be described as technologically mediated at every stage. Prior generations encountered new technologies as discrete events imposed on an existing developmental foundation. iGen members were handed smartphones
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