Definitely! We have be come a stupid society. One of the sources I blame - Sesame Street. We've forced learning into 30 second clips. I teach college level classes and textbooks are now filled with big colorful meaningless diagrams to "capture" the attention of students. It's a shame!! Learning doesn't really happen like it does on Sesame Street.
Sesame Street is crap, but I think it’s just a symptom. The real problem is that too many parents just farm out the responsibility for educating their kids, to PBS, or some “edutainment” DVD’s, or the public skools. Kids need parents to care about whether they are learning and what they are learning, otherwise the kids aren’t going to care much themselves.