Enough Already With "Generations"

A new “generation” has been named. Nothing could be more predictable. Generation Z had come of age, so their successors need a name.

Actually, they don’t.

“Generation Alpha” was created by a research firm, collecting data for marketers, wanting a framework to organize what they’ve found about new consumers.

The tastes of the young matter, especially to businesses. But there’ are millions of young people entering the market every year. They could be surveyed every year, or every five years, or every ten (and probably are). But naming a new cohort every 18 years or so and describing them in a way that will stay with them for a lifetime?  That’s worse than useless. It’s harmful.

Naming a new “generation” every 18 years is worse than useless.

Sometimes insulting, always inaccurate

Kim, born in 1967, frequently mentions being Gen X.  For her it means belonging to an overlooked generation, the one that began when the Baby Boom was over, relatively unimportant. I asked a handful of other “Gen Xers” how they felt about the label; each found it essentially negative. “We’ve been left to take care of ourselves.” They’re not Boomers but also not digital natives. The term comes from a novel featuring a cast of slackers. The letter X usually indicates an unknown.

Those of us born before 1946 can sympathize. We’re called the Silent Generation, assumed from the beginning to be conformists, and (before Biden) doomed never to have a President. Even worse than being called “Silent” is being described as “pre-Boomers.” Like Gen Xers we don’t see the generation born after 1945 as the center of history. But to be fair, neither do most them; another problem with these labels is that they encourage generation-bashing.

So let’s drop the term Boomers and just talk about the baby boom, sans capitals. The demographic bulge was real. It significantly shaped mid-century life. Schools and then campuses had to be expanded. The flood of young consumers coincided with post-war prosperity, and it mattered how they spent their money.

The oldest of them came of age during the 1960s. The world was changing, and a lot of them reveled in its new freedoms. But they didn’t launch that new world. Its leaders were mostly born before1946. Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and Mick Jagger; Huey Newton (Black Panthers), Mario Savio (Berkeley Free Speech), Gloria Steinem – all were born in the 1930s and early 1940s. Martin Luther King was born in 1929, John Lewis in 1940, Stokely Carmichael in 1941.

Many of the young were enthusiastic followers, and shaped the energy as it evolved, but most did not take to the streets, join communes, or burn the flag. Some had a revolutionary (or self-indulgent) soul. Most did not.

Generational labels have become a parody and should end. Sheila Calaham, Forbes

And so for each of the so-called generations of the past hundred years. Each label is an unscientific generalization that has taken on a life of its own.

How did it begin?

Not with the conviction that every 15-20 years a new “generation” would arise, needing a name. Each label has a different origin story. The “Lost Generation” -- adults dealing with the aftermath of World War I – was named by Gertrude Stein (or her garage mechanic) and popularized by Ernest Hemingway. The “Greatest Generation” (those who lived through the Depression and World War II) was named by Tom Brokaw in 1998. An outline was developing, suggesting that everyone must belong to some named generation, with distinctive traits.

That assumption began to be treated as a fact. Some researchers used the terms to organize their findings, reinforcing the myth.

We should fight the myth. Serious social scientists don’t assume that every 18 years marks a definitive cultural break. Instead they notice inflection points in their data and look for causes. Or look at specific events and investigate their effects. For instance, students during Covid closures may suffer academically for years; their records are being tracked. But whatever is found, it should be framed in terms of a Covid cohort, not a “Covid generation.” Similarly, it makes sense to distinguish digital immigrants from digital natives. It doesn’t make sense to map that distinction onto Gen X and the Millenials.

Social scientists agree. One hundred fifty of them signed an open letter to the Pew Research Foundation, asking it to stop using the so-called generations. “We don’t study and teach these categories because they simply aren’t real. And in social science, reality still matters.”  (Pew has complied, but only in part.)

So we should ignore “Generation Alpha” and let the term die of neglect. But can we?

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