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I agree that was a great GD post with much food for thought.
But I don't see what the old technology argument has to do with it. One could say the same for people of my age ruminating on life without the refrigerator or the telephone. I suppose the best analogy is the transition from stuck-with-land-lines to cell phones. Is that some kind of 90's touchstone? I don't think so. And to me, it argues for the exclusivity factor. We'll have portable communications devices for the foreseeable future. I doubt anyone will associate that with any particular decade.
Would flappers be instantaneously 20's if they endured in the 30's? Poodle skirts as 50's if they remained in the 60's? I guess my examples work easiest with fashion, but I think this factor applies more widely.
It was earlier noted that the effects of the "distinct decades" seem to run from the 2nd or 3rd year to the next 2nd or 3rd year. Certainly true with the 50's clearly brimming through the early 60's, and the 60's clearly running thru the early 70's. So anything in the early 90's, I consider part of the 80's phenomenon. But that's just me ... as someone who has personally observed this lag-trend for nearly 5 decades.
And, heheh, perhaps Starbucks is an 80's thing ... but not coffee. If anything, I think coffee is more iconic of the 30's than the 80's ... but it certainly had peaks of popularity in both. So coffee goes to demonstrate my point. Continuous popularity for 80 years excludes it from the flavor of any particular decade. I think the same will prove true of the internet.
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