I mean collectively by collectively.

Different groups with different specific membership criteria, different descriptive attributes... often, in general, tend to behave differently.

Try writing a history book involving dynamics and differences between groups that doesn't involve this. Or a medical study. Or a psychological study.

Statistics is the art of going from an unfounded stereotype or complete guess to an actually valid characterization of specified groups according to descriptive parameters.

Of course... these are general descriptors of a group, and do not accurately and perfectly describe every member of a group.

No, I wouldn't personally accept responsibility for something a bunch of people my age did... but I would accept that it would be reasonable for other people who didn't know me personally but just knew my age group to make certain reasonable assumptions about me that are actually borne out my the data.

Of course, one should always just have that as a kind of background knowledge and not judge every single book you meet by its cover, you should read the contents of their character if you want to really know them.

But at the same time, that is very time consuming to do with... literally everyone, so it is useful to have basic guidelines for what to expect from certain kinds of people, but not actually judge them or act toward them in a prejudiced way untill they specifically, individually confirm or disconfirm their sameness or difference from your preconceived notion.

Like uh... I am a millenial, and I know it is statistically valid for me to assume myself and other millenials have actual, comprehensive computer troubleshooting skills than boomers or zoomers.

I know a boomer is more likely to be a big Led Zeppelin fan, and a zoomer is more likely to be a fan of whateve is on Lo-fi girl... and I know that millenials are more likely to still be using the term 'doggo' and 'chonker' unironically, as well as think that the dialogue in the Borderlands games is cool.

Do I use doggo and chonker? Yeah, you got me, I still do sometimes.

Do I think Borderlands style, 'Millenial writing' is good? Fuck no, I hate that shit, bounced off those games half for the bullet spongy gameplay I just didn't like (Im much more of a realism/tac shooter/milsim kinda guy when it comes to gunplay) and half for the character writing that I found to be just fucking awful, rude, crass, annoying, self-important, cringe inducing.

I did like the art style though.

But anyway: I would not be surprised if someone just knew my age, that I like video games and am a dork, didn't know me beyond that, and then kinda assumed I was into Borderlands for the writing. I would be miffed if they were 100% convinced of this and acted as if it was true without ever actually asking me, but if they did ask, I wouldn't be offended by the question.