Generations

Question

Please explain to me like I’m 5
Why is the inconsistency in the age ranges of generations?
Lost Generation: 1883 – 1900 (17 Years)
The Greatest Generation: 1901 – 1927 (26 Years)
The Silent Generation: 1928 – 1945 (17 Years)
Baby Boomers: 1946 – 1964 (18 Years)
Generation X: 1965 – 1980 (15 Years)
Generation Y/Millennials: 1981 – 1996 (15 Years)
Generation Z: 1997 – 2012 (15 Years)
Gen Alpha: 2013 – Present (Currently 9 Years)

In: 0

Answer 1

The idea of a human social generation is vague, imprecise.

* What happened while you were in your formative years presumably influences your outlook on life. A proverbial case is that people who grew up in the Great Depression often grew up poor and became accustomed to wasting nothing, making jam and wine out of anything that could be preserved or fermented, hoarding things that that other generations would discard, etc. And that’s why, everyone always claims, great grandma always saved balls of foil and rubber bands and so on. But eras like that don’t necessary happen in a neat little range of years, so generations are different lengths. And circumstances overlap; it’s crazy to say one generation ends exactly when another generation begins.
* Even people who do grow up at the same time obviously are not going to all be the same. Are you the same as all the people your age? No. We’re all different. Economics, genetics, personal experience, gender, etc., all play strong roles in how we turn out. That’s why it’s as stupid to say, for example, “all boomers are like this” as it is to say “all [members of whatever your generation is] are like that.”
* Whether you were 9 or 19 when something happened obviously makes a huge difference on how it affects you, even though you might be in the same so-called generation.
* Things are different around the world. Only a very narrow regional view of things would allow you to think everyone of a particular range of years is similar.

So generations are really only useful if you combine them with other factors, and they’re still not all that precise. All middle-class white American women born between 1950 and 1960 must have a lot in common, but they aren’t all the same.

Answer 2

The idea of a human social generation is vague, imprecise.

* What happened while you were in your formative years presumably influences your outlook on life. A proverbial case is that people who grew up in the Great Depression often grew up poor and became accustomed to wasting nothing, making jam and wine out of anything that could be preserved or fermented, hoarding things that that other generations would discard, etc. And that’s why, everyone always claims, great grandma always saved balls of foil and rubber bands and so on. But eras like that don’t necessary happen in a neat little range of years, so generations are different lengths. And circumstances overlap; it’s crazy to say one generation ends exactly when another generation begins.
* Even people who do grow up at the same time obviously are not going to all be the same. Are you the same as all the people your age? No. We’re all different. Economics, genetics, personal experience, gender, etc., all play strong roles in how we turn out. That’s why it’s as stupid to say, for example, “all boomers are like this” as it is to say “all [members of whatever your generation is] are like that.”
* Whether you were 9 or 19 when something happened obviously makes a huge difference on how it affects you, even though you might be in the same so-called generation.
* Things are different around the world. Only a very narrow regional view of things would allow you to think everyone of a particular range of years is similar.

So generations are really only useful if you combine them with other factors, and they’re still not all that precise. All middle-class white American women born between 1950 and 1960 must have a lot in common, but they aren’t all the same.