Generations

What is the name of the current generation? And how long is a generation? I understood that a generation was 25 years, but apparently for naming purposes, it's more like 15-20

http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/qt/generations.htm

I think the suggested names for the current generation SUCK. we can do better.


For starters, I suggest:

Hashtag (my personal fave)
Facebook
Twitter
Selfie

Looks like they don't use a set number of years so I guess they must use some sort of social happenings, like the end of WW II or JFK shot, for the breaks.

I agree they (whoever "they" are), are coming up with sucky names.
This bunch isn't any better than the ones you linked :(

The Population Reference Bureau provides an alternate listing and chronology of generational names in the United States.

2000/2001-Present - New Silent Generation or Generation Z
1983-2001 - New Boomers
1965-1982 - Generation X
1946-1964 - Baby Boomers
1929-1945 - Lucky Few
1909-1928 - Good Warriors
1890-1908 - Hard Timers
1871-1889 - New Worlders

Are these generation names for the US? For North America? For English speaking countries? First world nations? Everybody?

2000/2001-Present - New Silent Generation or Generation Z
1983-2001 - New Boomers

How telling that the older generations are trying to name the younger generations in terms of themselves.

"New Boomers" is obviously crap, everyone calls them "Millenials." (And by everyone, I mean your average journalistic fluff-piece, the ultimate indicator of vernacular culture.) And like Bruce said, generations are drawn along lines of experience. The beginning of Generation X is basically anyone who was too young to remember the Vietnam War. Millenials are those who are too young to remember a time with zero computers. We don't know yet what the defining thing of this generation will be, partly because it literally doesn't exist until the generation is already 5-7 years old. It could be smartphones, I think. My kids don't remember a time without smartphones, and they were born 2006 and 2008. Then again, if World War III breaks out next year, that will probably be a more memorable legacy that we will define my kids' generation by instead.

Strauss and Howe have done the most work on the generations and even though Strauss is dead I feel like we should respect them. So, the right answers:

1860–1882: Missionary Generation
1883-1900: Lost Generation
1901-1924: G.I. Generation
1925-1942: Silent Generation
1943-1960: Baby Boomers
1961-1981: Generation X
1982-2004: Millennial Generation
2005-?: Homeland Generation

Looks like they don't use a set number of years

Strauss and Howe emphasize that the precise boundaries of generations and turnings are erratic. The generational rhythm is not like certain simple, inorganic cycles in physics or astronomy, where time and periodicity can be predicted to the second. Instead, it resembles the complex, organic cycles of biology, where basic intervals endure but precise timing is difficult to predict. Strauss and Howe compare the saecular rhythm to the four seasons, which inevitably occur in the same order, but with slightly varying timing. Just as winter may come sooner or later, and be more or less severe in any given year, the same is true of a Fourth Turning in any given saeculum.

Undertoad wrote:

1982-2004: Millennial Generation
2005-?: Homeland Generation

Ah yes, Homeland seems to me to imply "pre vs. post 9/11." It's a reasonable cutoff, but it means I'd put the start date at more like '96, i.e. kids old enough to remember 9/11.

Even without that event, though, I strongly disagree with grouping a kid born in 2004 with millenials who actually lived through the millenium. The millenium was a cultural awareness thing, an attitude-shaper that screamed "future!" and made all our consumer products predominantly chrome-colored for awhile. You're a millenial because you were shaped as a child by the cultural promise of a new millenium, not because you were born 4 years after it happened.

Facetime Generation?

The Smartphone Generation

The Phablet Generation

Fuck Strauss and Howe, how dare they move me from the "Lucky Few" or "Silent Generation" to "Baby Boomers". I won't stand for it, I won't.

The ones born after 2000 are whippersnappers.

monster;895370 wrote:

... I understood that a generation was 25 years, but apparently for naming purposes, it's more like 15-20 ...

xoxoxoBruce;895376 wrote:

Looks like they don't use a set number of years so I guess they must use some sort of social happenings, like the end of WW II or JFK shot, for the breaks. ...

Ah yes, reminds me of watching the Dr. Massey tapes, all of them in one sitting, especially Program 3 - "What you are is..." which separates generations along those lines:

"As Massey discusses value programming, you’ll discover how significant events have shaped the value systems of different generations - and you’ll learn how to work better with individuals by viewing each in light of his or her past. This program will help reveal how value systems and prejudices are formed. You will learn to handle personality obstacles. 145 minutes"

I'm surprised you can still buy those tapes on DVD for a mere $1,350.00; or, rent them for five days for just $475.00.

I thought they were called the "Pepsi Generation" based upon the size of thighs and bellys.

Googlies

& Bingos

xoxoxoBruce;895420 wrote:

Fuck Strauss and Howe, how dare they move me from the "Lucky Few" or "Silent Generation" to "Baby Boomers". I won't stand for it, I won't.

But I support them because they moved me out of the free ride gimme gimme boomer generation.

Bah, regardless of your remarkable talents and accomplishments, you ain't an X-Man. :p:

George Masnick... puts this generation in the timeframe of 1965 to 1984, in part because it's a neat 20-year period.

Because it's a neat 20-year-period? You cannot be my historian.

I know this is drifting, drifting..... But.

Something I've noticed about my niece and nephew's generation is their immediacy.
They're not really MTV generation (at least not in this country and not in their house) but they know so little about what happened before they became aware of the world. Although in their particular case I'm not sure they even are aware of it yet. I'd be super-surprised if either could name one member of the Cabinet.

Trivial example - We Didn't Start the Fire by Billy Joel came out when I was 16. I didn't understand all the references (it is skewed to American headlines after all) but I got at least two-thirds. And they started over 20 years before I was born. I mean that's nothing; I didn't consider it history. But in conversation with the younglings (I now work with people of Ab's age at the weekends) they've never heard of the Falklands, the miners' strike, the poll tax riots or even The Troubles.
At least the kids I work with will say, "Really? OMG, I didn't know that. That explains [xyz]"
But then maybe they're humouring a crone like me.

To Abs and Sam I might as well be talking about the Norman Invasion as referring to some sort of seismic shift that happened in society ten years ago.

Sorry, the above sounds like I get all Speakers' Corner on them. If I was ranting I could completely understand their lack of interest. I'm only referring to things which occasionally come up in conversation.

They just seem so...
blinkered.
Surfeit of information maybe? I had to go to the reference library to look up the Marquis de Sade. They know they can do it in a heartbeat, so don't bother. It's old stuff after all.

I might have to drag my weary bones to another thread to explain my waspishness (there is a reason I'm cranky).
But my point still stands.

If I could continue the drift...

I have little experience of generations after mine as I have no close relations and never had children of my own. However, when I was at work it was noticeable that neither the work experience kids, nor those taken on as full time employees, had any sense of where they stood in the great scheme of things.

They knew nothing of recent history and they were so ignorant of even local geography I'm surprised that most of them ever managed to find their own way in on a morning. None seemed to have much idea about things that affected them profoundly and few had any idea at all about which party formed the government.

Whilst most of them could be relied upon to do as they were told when given a particular task, not one seemed capable of using his or her initiative. They all seemed to exist in a bubble in which they were spoon fed by life.

I know that I probably sound like Methuselah, but the contrast between what I was expected to know and understand on leaving school, and the level of perception shown by the current batch of school leavers, is so marked as to be frightening.

What worries me is that should I live long enough to take up residence in some care home or other, the lad advancing towards me with the syringe will probably be the kid I saw today who couldn't tie his own shoe laces.

I think I might have just fallen down the generation gap...

Carruthers wrote:

I know that I probably sound like Methuselah, but the contrast between what I was expected to know and understand on leaving school, and the level of perception shown by the current batch of school leavers, is so marked as to be frightening.

But what about the things you weren't expected to know and understand on leaving school? You'd never know how big your deficits were, because you didn't know. The old-timers were grousing behind your back too, you'd better believe it.

But what about the things you weren't expected to know and understand on leaving school? You'd never know how big your deficits were, because you didn't know. The old-timers were grousing behind your back too, you'd better believe it.

Yes, you make a fair point there Clod; it's a scenario as old as time.

It's not the lack of knowledge and experience that only a few miles on the clock will bring these kids, it's their apparent lack of any sense of curiosity, awareness or observation that surely should be at their peak at that age.

Perhaps my somewhat isolated position makes matters appear worse than they actually are. I don't know...

Carruthers.

I think it means the memory hole is being successfully implemented.

They call them the Selfie Generation in this article

http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-26929712

Honestly it feels like 1981-1995 should be the new lost generation.

I like "The Internet Generation", but I think it's just ending and the next one is "The I-phone Generation".