As a millennial, I recognize that us 90’s kids just look like very tall teenagers, where as people our age back 30 to 40 years ago actually LOOKED like they were in their 20’s. Why is this?
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Your perception plays a huge role.
Older generations wore older styles of clothing and hair. We associate these older styles with older people, because people tend to stop updating their style as they get older. As a result, when you see a picture of someone from the 50s wearing a suit and crew-cut, they appear to be a few years older than they actually are in the photo.
The media we view them in also matters. We associate old grainy photos with older generations and as a result they “feel” older. If you could travel back in time and take a smartphone video of the youth of the day, they would appear much younger because of our perception of the media format.
This effect is actually one reason why films are still shown at 24* frames per second even though we have much higher-speed cameras easily available. We associate smooth 60 fps video with home video, and so cinematic features filmed at 60 fps actually seem amateurish as a result.
*Edit: filmed at 24 fps and shown at 48 fps, as u/skiveman explains below
not sure but kids/young adults these days are much more conscious of sun damage ageing your skin and obviously risks skin cancer so they like to sunscreen up
keeps them looking young
I suspect kids of the future will look at vintage instagram and think millennials and Gen Z look old with their beach waves, curtain bangs, and dad shoes. 20 year from now, it will appear dated and silly to them.
Vsauce on YouTube have a long video on it:
Don’t discount how big a role not sucking in second-hand cigarette smoke every time you visit a business plays in keeping you young-looking. Our skin is just better than generations past.
I just read a post where a woman basically said that growing up means you lose your ability to experience giddy joy and glee. Lots of people of course disagreed with her but I think her definition of maturity was much more common a few decades ago. It was expected from adults that they don’t giggle, don’t get excited, that they stayed composed and controlled and that showed in their demeanour and faces.
Less sun exposure, vastly lower smoking rates and exposure, lead exposure has plummeted.
All of those things combined are doing a lot to help with the visual signs of aging when it comes to skin and general health.
in addition to all of the factors mentioned by other comments, I believe it’s because people go out less, especially stay under the sun for long periods of time. people are less keen on “looking tan” and the digital age allow people to stay entertained without leaving their house, and less exposure to sunlight cause less uv damage to the skin.
There is definitely an effect from the medium. School kids look so old in a staged black and white photo of that time. But when you see the same kids in a casual video setting (colorized artificially) suddenly you think: yeah these guys could have gone to my school.
The movement and teenager behavior alone affects your mind’s perception to make them look as young as they really are.
So that effect is real for me.
But also less smoking, drinking and sun. Less physical labor. (Less stress from having kids early? Maybe not true). Our health is just better. People can work longer into their life. Lifespans goin up.
I’ve been reading a lot about how we’re losing initiatory rite-of-passage rituals and that’s preventing us from going through phases of maturity that earlier societies would go through
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