THE BORE
General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: Eric P on July 07, 2008, 02:59:14 PM
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http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-book5-2008jul05,0,5024658,print.story
BOOK REVIEW
'The Dumbest Generation' by Mark Bauerlein
How dumb are we? Thanks to the Internet, dumb and dumber, this author writes.
By Lee Drutman
Special to The Times
July 5, 2008
In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!
Such is the kind of recklessly distracted impatience that makes Mark Bauerlein fear for his country. "As of 2008," the 49-year-old professor of English at Emory University writes in "The Dumbest Generation," "the intellectual future of the United States looks dim."
The way Bauerlein sees it, something new and disastrous has happened to America's youth with the arrival of the instant gratification go-go-go digital age. The result is, essentially, a collective loss of context and history, a neglect of "enduring ideas and conflicts." Survey after painstakingly recounted survey reveals what most of us already suspect: that America's youth know virtually nothing about history and politics. And no wonder. They have developed a "brazen disregard of books and reading."
Things were not supposed to be this way. After all, "never have the opportunities for education, learning, political action, and cultural activity been greater," writes Bauerlein, a former director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. But somehow, he contends, the much-ballyhooed advances of this brave new world have not only failed to materialize -- they've actually made us dumber.
The problem is that instead of using the Web to learn about the wide world, young people instead mostly use it to gossip about each other and follow pop culture, relentlessly keeping up with the ever-shifting lingua franca of being cool in school. The two most popular websites by far among students are Facebook and MySpace. "Social life is a powerful temptation," Bauerlein explains, "and most teenagers feel the pain of missing out."
This ceaseless pipeline of peer-to-peer activity is worrisome, he argues, not only because it crowds out the more serious stuff but also because it strengthens what he calls the "pull of immaturity." Instead of connecting them with parents, teachers and other adult figures, "[t]he web . . . encourages more horizontal modeling, more raillery and mimicry of people the same age." When Bauerlein tells an audience of college students, "You are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the speaker of the U.S. House is," a voice in the crowd tells him: " 'American Idol' IS more important."
Bauerlein also frets about the nature of the Internet itself, where people "seek out what they already hope to find, and they want it fast and free, with a minimum of effort." In entering a world where nobody ever has to stick with anything that bores or challenges them, "going online habituates them to juvenile mental habits."
And all this feeds on itself. Increasingly disconnected from the "adult" world of tradition, culture, history, context and the ability to sit down for more than five minutes with a book, today's digital generation is becoming insulated in its own stultifying cocoon of bad spelling, civic illiteracy and endless postings that hopelessly confuse triviality with transcendence. Two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates now score above average on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, up 30% since 1982, he reports.
At fault is not just technology but also a newly indulgent attitude among parents, educators and other mentors, who, Bauerlein argues, lack the courage to risk "being labeled a curmudgeon and a reactionary."
But is he? The natural (and anticipated) response would indeed be to dismiss him as your archetypal cranky old professor who just can't understand why "kids these days" don't find Shakespeare as timeless as he always has. Such alarmism ignores the context and history he accuses the youth of lacking -- the fact that mass ignorance and apathy have always been widespread in anti-intellectual America, especially among the youth. Maybe something is different this time. But, of course. Something is different every time.
The book's ultimate doomsday scenario -- of a dull and self-absorbed new generation of citizens falling prey to demagoguery and brazen power grabs -- seems at once overblown (witness, for example, this election season's youth reengagement in politics) and also yesterday's news (haven't we always been perilously close to this, if not already suffering from it?). But amid the sometimes annoyingly frantic warning bells that ding throughout "The Dumbest Generation," there are also some keen insights into how the new digital world really is changing the way young people engage with information and the obstacles they face in integrating any of it meaningfully. These are insights that educators, parents and other adults ignore at their peril.
Lee Drutman is co-author of "The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restoring Democracy."
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Wheeeeeee presumptuous scolding!
"Let me tell you what your priorities should be young people, and it's certainly not socializing with each other!"
I could draw all sorts of conclusions about how this guy spent his youth, but I'm way too classy for that.
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That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!
Wow, what a condescending jackass.
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susan jacobi's age of american unreason also pulled this same condescending shit as did Amusing Ourselves to Death.
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True that, Cohen. I doubt the bobby soxers would have put together really subtle, intellectual Myspace pages if they had the technology available to them in the 50's.
Also the Flynn effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) is all up in this guy's face.
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To me, it's texting that is the problem with youth of today. Every day for lunch at work, we go to the mall's food court. All I see is the kids(mostly girls) with their face in their phone completely ignoring the friends/parents she is sitting with. Last weekend at my wife's cousin's HS graduation party, there were about 20 kids sitting around the table and almost every on of them was whipping out their phone every 2 minutes barely talking to each other.. It was disgusting.
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True that, Cohen. I doubt the bobby soxers would have put together really subtle, intellectual Myspace pages if they had the technology available to them in the 50's.
Also the Flynn effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) is all up in this guy's face.
Fluid intelligence may have been increasing over the last few decades, but that doesn't mean crystallized intelligence has been increasing too. The article only discusses the latter kind of intelligence, which involves knowing things--like who the Speaker of the House is.
That being said, Americans have never been known as avid readers. I doubt that today's young Americans read less than previous generations of young Americans. Though, they probably do have shorter attention spans.
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I don't know who the speaker of the house is because I don't give a shit. It has no bearing on me or my day. So I guess I'm dumb.
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Too Human viral marketing :bow
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I dunno if we're dumb, just not entirely relevant
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Relevance is irrelevant. According to the article, the average 15 to 24-year-old spends just eight minutes a day reading (though I don't see how this is possible). So they're not just ignoring irrelevant subjects, like who is the Speaker of the House, but they're ignoring all subjects. Anyway, only caring about things relevant to your day-to-day lives seems myopic.
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Yeah but they know the Konami code.
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Yeah but they know the Konami code.
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A
I sure wasted money on this humanities BA
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Yep
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tl;dr
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Really? I've learned a lot more from the internet. I've used it as an educational resource.
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Really? I've learned a lot more from the internet. I've used it as an educational resource.
Did you use google maps to find a park?
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I sure did. Google maps is excellent. See? The internet can help spark the life in a man if used correctly.
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Google maps is pretty good but mapquest is better
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tl;dr did u guys see the new youtubes lol
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Google maps is pretty good but mapquest is better
That's a Mondain-equivalent opinon.
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I don't know who the speaker of the house is because I don't give a shit. It has no bearing on me or my day. So I guess I'm dumb.
Yeah. I don't see what this has to do with anything.
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Google maps is pretty good but mapquest is better
That's a Mondain-equivalent opinon.
It's only because I've used mapquest forever and I can't go anywhere else.
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Old man is old.
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It has no bearing on anything. That's why it's such a poor example of Americans getting stupid.
But it's probably a good signifier that the person in question doesn't know much about current politics to begin with. I think that was the point, not a "name the house speaker" trivia question.
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Does a spoon need to know how to be a fork? Relevance is an important factor. Only the bookish, insecure about their own usefulness, will sneer at people who do not have an innate knowledge of something that is for the most part, beyond their control anyway (ie politics).
If anything I would level more concern at an intellectual base thats far less adventurous these days. Lets all huddle on the intarwebz n mope!
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I used the internet to find Ron Paul.
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They call this generation stupid, I call previous generations ignorant. It goes both ways.
But yeah. In general society is pushed by 10% and maintained by the other 90%
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But yeah. In general society is pushed by 10% and maintained by the other 90%
mmm, pareto principle
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Im in the 90%. Status Quo for me thx.
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Finally, a college professor that understands me.
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Google maps is pretty good but mapquest is better
what
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I spent a good portion of my yesterday learning about nuclear reactors, theories on health effects of radiation and the disaster at Chernobyl thanks to YouTube, Hulu, The History Channel, Wikipedia and more. Fuck you, generalizing professor!
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I spent a good portion of my yesterday learning about nuclear reactors, theories on health effects of radiation and the disaster at Chernobyl thanks to YouTube, Hulu, The History Channel, Wikipedia and more. Fuck you, generalizing professor!
i learned all of that from STALKER.
i can't wait to fight mutants!
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Persona 3 teaches me japanese history