"In This Day And Age!"

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I hear this term now and then and it is a term that does not really make any sense most of the time I hear it being used. Most if the time people are referring to something which should not have happened or should not be happening. But why not just say "This should not be happening." What does this day and age have anything to do with it? The majority of the time every generation since the world began and humans walked the earth they could have used the phraze in regards to the subject which was mentioned. So the majority of the time that the phraze is used... It is meaningless... Then why use it?
In this day and age we should not be using the term out of context. HAHA! Notice my example in the sentence I have just put. But that is the point. We use terms like the above which are a meaningless use of the term where one could go back 50 years and use the same term for the same subject in the same context which renders the term pointless.

People tend to think of decades and generations (20 year periods) in terms of “ages.”

The 1980s is called the “Me Decade.” The late 19th Century is known as the “gilded age.”

It makes sense to me. It shouldn't be happening because we have come this far, it should be a thing of the past. It's an assumption that things are progressing.

That bigotry can run rampant even in the justice system , causees me to want to be ill

I find it logical. Usually it's used in a situation where something wrong happens which wouldn't have been wrong, say, fifty years ago. For examble, when my parents were young it was normal for a teacher to verbally humiliate a child who didn't understand something in class, but in this day and age it's not acceptable and it'll be a scandal if it gets out. However, if a teacher killed a kid, one wouldn't use that saying since it's never been acceptable, unlike the humiliating.

It depends. Sometimes the expression is a reaction to something that IS indeed an anachronism. Some bad thing happens that's association with an earlier era. Like if the bubonic plague breaks out, or if they find people being used as slaves on plantations. So that usage makes perfect sense. But sometimes it used with things that are not tied to any "age" in history.

Could be worse. In the US you used to hear the expression "a nation that can land a man on the Moon outa be able to [fill in the blank]".

Fill in the blank being whatever you're upset about at the time..."provide more parking", "take care of the eldery","create world peace", "put cupholders in cars", etc.

You started to hear it in the Sixties even before Buzz Aldrin became the first person to actually walk on the Moon, and the expression didn't go out of style until around 1990.