I gave a talk about generational differences in the workplace this year, so had a fair amount of research about how different generations manage finance.
The charts do a good job of telling the story, but it basically goes like this: Children of the great Depression were terribly frugal, working hard to avoid a future financial hardship. Then the next generation (the one described in the article) decided they were not going to be miserly penny-pinchers like their parents. They bought everything with the belief they'd pay it off later. Now the next generations see the folloy in their parents behavior, so now we have the FIRE generation, once again pinching pennies.
And so the pendulum swings back and forth. And the beat goes on.