We’ve talked about it on our show before–the movie “Idiocracy” is slowly proving to be more and more prophetic.
An English professor at Emory University in Atlanta contends that technology is making the next generation dumber rather than smarter according to USA Today.
Mark Bauerlein contends that Generation Y is more likely to use their free time to check Facebook or a blog rather than read a book. And because of the generation’s exposure to computer technology since elementary school and communicating on-line in text-messages and Internet slang, Baurlein says people ages 16-29 are losing “narrative skill needed as adults.”
“Those forms groove bad habits, so when it comes time to produce an academic paper … or when they enter the workplace, their capacity breaks down,” he said.
Social networking sites can give young users “the sense of them being the center of the universe,” Bauerlein adds.
That gives them a distorted understanding of how the world works, he says. “If you go into a room of strangers, you don’t know how to relate. You can’t replicate your IM habits,” he says. “It closes people off from a wider engagement with the world.”
Parents must do more to pull their teens away from technology, including being role models in developing intellectual pursuits: “Talk with your kids. Kids can’t do this by themselves.”
Baurlein argues these points in his new book, “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30).”
In contrast to this, Don Tapscott argues that these children are not growing up dumber; they are growing up learning different things in different ways than baby boomers did. In his book, Grown Up Digital (and associated website http://www.grownupdigital.com/), he points out examples of how students are much more comfortable with technology and new media and a digital lifestyle than we of the baby boomer generation are.
I’m sure that the author can back up the claim with something like test scores, surveys, and/or direct interviews of persons from various age groups, because otherwise his assertion is extremely unviable from a Scientific point of view.
In other words, “I’d like to see his numbers”.
Lejon, The book contains numerous studies, test scores, surveys, and polls to make the case.
MB
Hold the phone there gang. I’m sure there are test scores and other data showing the world is getting dumber. (I have no argument with that)
However, what is the driving force? Technology. Really? That seems to me to be a very convenient scapegoat for what is really going on in the world. Saying that science and technology is the problem with the world and that we all need to get back to “The old ways” sounds familiar. “Religious much?”
As with all things in life, finding a balance and incorporating it into your daily existence is the challenge. The same was said 50 years ago with that new-fangled TV box that was sucking kids brains away. Cable TV was going to be the end of us all as well as video games and all manor of other diversions that have cropped up over the centuries.
Look to history gang… Everything old is new again.
Must be a thing with us old guys; a way of looking at the world.
I agree with you Michael. People forget technology does not really shape what we are. It’s just something we avail ourselves to in the expression of what we are. Idiots will still be idiots regardless of what toys they play with.
People who have the passion for growing, who have curiosity driving their lives toward better understanding of the world around them, those people will use technology, and any advances resulting from it, to the pursuit of knowledge, to innovation, to improving their quality of life and that of those around them.
All the study shows is there seem to be fewer of those people around . . . or maybe there are the same number as always, but the idiots have swelled their numbers. Saaay! . . . that would make a great movie! Well, not great, but entertaining.
I guess that is true if they just sit around and play xbox. but my computer and ipod has made me a lot smarter, And gave me some really cool friends too!
🙂
Darcy
Great point Darcy,
What about all the great things tech has done to make people smarter. Tech can be an incredible resource if you ‘Choose’ to implement it.
I think that the more important point is that the population is becoming more lazy and unmotivated.
One thing I will give to the article is that technology makes it far easier to not have to work to find the information, and it is allowing many to slide by with little or no effort to learn.
However… I remember that same argument being given to the Encyclopedia Britanica. (All the information was in one place, and kids did not have to do the leg-work to research. It was a travesty.)
So… The argument gets an update. 😉
“That gives them a distorted understanding of how the world works”
Not to get overly philosophical but isn’t the world what we make it and given that there over 6 billion people out there with seemingly unending cultural, religious and policitical view points and beliefs, just “world” is this Professor referring to. I would say its a big world(s) By the way I’m not entirely convinced that the “world” or people in general were all that bright to begin with prior to the late 20th and early 21st century.
Consider this scenerio, the entire world (just theorical) uses only cell phones or computers to communicate. That simply put is the world in which people exist and that kind of communication isn’t right or wrong, its just a reality. I do think to a certain extant that he has a point but its a point of view from an older generation that came before cell phones and texting.
I think its also silly to basically that technology is making us weak or dumb. You can litterally point to any technological advance and claim that it weakend people. I bet when the wheel was invented someone like him would have made a similar argument. Really, its not technology thats the problem, its people who have a lack of balance in their lives.
I think if most people could strike a balance between being social online and being social in the “real” world then that would be a good thing. But all too offten most people use technology as a crutch and unfortunately I’m guilty of relying too much on computers as a means of communication but then again electronic communication is just a reality.
Darcy does make a good point, but not the one he/she wanted to make. There are four grammatical mistakes in the one sentence!
Yes, but Television did make people dumber. Just because the new generation is worse than the previous one, doesn’t mean the previous one wasn’t worse than the one before that. I mean, come on people, we spend an average of circa three hours a day glaring at a box. That’s not real bright, even without considering that its contents have been gradually being dumbed down through the last fifty years. Heck, I’m 17 and I can remember shows being smarter when I was young!