31 December 2009

Wrapping Up The Aughts

Time to wrap up the aughts and throw’em in the trash (please don’t recycle them).

That’s what most people think:

Current Decade Rates as Worst in 50 Years
image As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative (50%) rather than a generally positive (27%) impression of the past 10 years. This stands in stark contrast to the public’s recollection of other decades in the past half-century. When asked to look back on the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, positive feelings outweigh negative in all cases.

I’ve stumbled upon a few news stories about the above survey – and either the writers are not too bright, or they’ve purposely twisted the results to make Baby Boomers seem as if they had mostly positive reactions to the past decade.  I’m not linking to these news stories – but I’ll quote one:

Despite the generally negative view of the 2000s, fewer baby boomers saw this decade negatively. “Baby Boomers - most of whom are between the ages of 50 and 64 today and were between 20 and 34 in 1979 - view this decade in an overwhelmingly favorable light, with positive impressions outnumbering negative views by 48 points (59% positive vs. 11% negative).”

image If you read the research, Baby Boomers were talking about the 1970s, not the 2000s:

Boomers Look Back Fondly
… The biggest generational division of opinion is in retrospective evaluations of the 1970s. Baby Boomers – most of whom are between the ages of 50 and 64 today and were between 20 and 34 in 1979 – view this decade in an overwhelmingly favorable light, with positive impressions outnumbering negative views by 48 points (59% positive vs. 11% negative).

Sloppy reporting?  Probably.

See you next decade.  

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