 This rhetoric had an important impact in the perceptions of the boomers, as well as society's increasingly common tendency to define the world in terms of generations, which was a relatively new phenomenon.In Europe and North America, boomers are widely associated with privilege, as many came of age in a time of increasing affluence and widespread government subsidies in post-war housing and education, and grew genuinely expecting the world to improve with time.However, this generation also has been criticized often for its increases in consumerism and narcissism which others saw as excessive.