# How Accurate Is the Concept of Specific Generations?



## RosettaStoned (Mar 11, 2014)

I know it's more convenient to say Baby Boomers than "People Born Between...", but I have a few problems with the idea of labels for specific generations:

1) It only means something for people who grew up in similar cultures and economies. The 60's was not a time of peace & love in the Soviet Union.
2) It assumes a constant rate of change in how different life will be. Technology advanced at different rates throughout the 20th century, and capitalism stopped working how it should in the 70's and hasn't recovered since.
3) The cut-off marks should be more fluid. It's not like someone born in 1995 will be that different from someone born in 1994.
4) It's another false division that gives people another excuse to hate people they've never met for no reason.
5) It perpetuates the idea that arbitrary labels can accurately explain human behaviour.


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## Moss Icon (Mar 29, 2011)

Not very. 

It's more of a pop-culture thing than a people-thing, in my opinion. Your point 3) is what's always stuck in my craw as it is totally absurd to suggest someone born in '95 is an entirely different generation to one born in '94. Being born in 1980, I've found myself on the cusp of Generations X and Y. By some standards (and here on PerC), I'm Y. By some, I'm X. And yet I relate most to those born within 5 years of myself in either direction. To say I am of the same generation as my Aunt (born 1968, thus Gen X), and a different generation to my friend Alex (born 1985, thus Gen Y), is ridiculous. Alex and I shared many of the same experiences growing up, played with the same toys, watched the same cartoons, even had that same 90s centre-parted, floppy Hugh Grant-esque haircut. My Aunt didn't share any of those experiences - she was all into 80s fashion and music, which I was largely indifferent to, being aged 0-9 as I was. 

Naah, I think these cultural generations mark a kind of socio-political and pop-cultural mood. These encapsulate people born during a certain time, but generations are ever-changing, and they don't stop for a rest to wait for the next generation to come along. Thus they can't accurately represent everyone born during their "period". It strikes me as perhaps more accurate to blur the lines more, and account for cuspers like myself. Grouping 15-odd years' worth of births together with set cut-off dates just doesn't work at all.


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