Defining terms: generation, society, era

1. Generation:

• the entire body of individuals born and living at about the same time: the postwar generation.
• the term of years, roughly 30 among human beings, accepted as the average period between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring.
• a group of individuals, most of whom are the same approximate age, having similar ideas, problems, attitudes, etc. Compare Beat Generation, Lost Generation.
• a group of individuals belonging to a specific category at the same time: Chaplin belonged to the generation of silent-screen stars.
• a single step in natural descent, as of human beings, animals, or plants.

***To simplify in my mind, I think of a generation as a group of people who be categorized in the same category.

For ex. Generation X- Those born in the post-World War II baby boom (1960s-1980s)

      2. Society:

• an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes.
• a body of individuals living as members of a community; community.
•  the body of human beings generally, associated or viewed as members of a community: the evolution of human society.
• a highly structured system of human organization for large-scale community living that normally furnishes protection, continuity, security, and a national identity for its members: American society.
• such a system characterized by its dominant economic class or form: middle-class society; industrial society.

***To simplify in my mind, I think society is an organized group of people who associate/connect/relate due to a specific purpose or connection. I also like idea of society combining the term of community. What is a community? 

         3. Era: 

• a period of time marked by distinctive character, events, etc.: The use of steam for power marked the beginning of an era.
• the period of time to which anything belongs or is to be assigned: She was born in the era of hansoms and gaslight.
• a system of chronologic notation reckoned from a given date: The era of the Romans was based upon the time the city of Rome was founded.
• a point of time from which succeeding years are numbered, as at the beginning of a system of chronology: Caesar died many years before our era.
• a date or an event forming the beginning of any distinctive period: The year 1492 marks an era in world history.

***To simplify in my mind, when we talk about era it concerns a period of time.