[SeekAndFind]

This is what the author of the book observes :

"Speaking of homework, teens spend twice as much time in front of the boob tube as they do completing school assignments, according to a study Bauerlein refers to in the book. The citation is one of many he uses to build his case against the encroaching evils of the digital world. Given the evidence, it's not a hard case to make. When a higher percentage of students can name the Three Stooges than the three branches of government, something is amiss.

Bauerlein points to reading apathy as a major contributing factor. One study found that 18- to 24-year-olds are the least active, least avid reading group in the country except for those 75 and older (who probably suffer from age-related ailments that make reading difficult to begin with). High school and college students have time to read -- another study found that they average five and a half hours of leisure time per day -- but they choose less intellectually stimulating avenues of entertainment. In fact, the average teen now dedicates the equivalent of a full-time job to media. "It isn't enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them," Bauerlein writes.

[GeronL]

yup. I would agree with that.

Anyone see that movie Idiocracy?

[GeronL]

yup. I would agree with that.

Anyone see that movie Idiocracy?

[ClearCase_guy]

The reviewer defends today's electronic media gadgets, saying:

Yet these entertainment mediums are just that -- mediums that can be used for either good or evil. How an individual chooses to use the tool is the moral question, not the tool itself.

But Marshall McLuhan might disagree. Sticking an ipod in your ears, chatting with total strangers on MySpace, etc. -- it's pretty central to this sort of lifestyle that you're not interacting with the world that's in front of you -- you're off in your own world. The author seems to be making this point, but the reviewer seems not to be getting the point. Maybe that's because he's part of the Dumbest Generation.

[rellimpank]

—bflr-

[beaversmom]

This thread relates:

THIS KID’S A TEXT MANIAC OMG! 14,528 MESSAGES IN A MONTH!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2163104/posts

[Calpernia]

[this_ol_patriot]

Anecdotal but from speaking to younger people at work they have no idea of the evils of Communism or Socialism, they think of these systems as viable alternate forms of government. This is scary.

[qam1]

Xer Ping

Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.

Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.  

[model B]

My wife is 28. I am 35 — She has an IPOD, I do not. I have no degree — only about 90 credits toward a History degree. My wife has a bachelor’s in speech language pathology and is on her way to a Master’s. She graduated summa cum laude and currently has a 3.9 GPA — she has less than a year left. All while working full-time with our child who is now two years old.

Dumb? Disinterested? Swamped by digital media? I don’t think so! People need to be careful when they paint with such broad strokes. There are slackers in all generations.

[JimC214]

Does the not trusting any one under 30 include the Men and Woman who are fighting our enemies? I mean if we are going to make stupid generalizations.

[Kozak]

Oh. Like all those men and women who are serving in the Armed Forces and defending the asses of people like the author?

[Starfleet Command]

[yongin]

My 16 year old niece works on the student newspaper at her public high school. She did a survey of fellow students if they knew what the Bill of Rights are. Unfortunately, most failed. Most of her peers thought healthcare, housing, minimum wage, and college education were a part of the Bill of Rights.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Just 1 preliminary comment/observation:

If this professor is really “Boomer” (perhaps of the Hippie genre, specifically), I find it all so typical that he’d insult yet another younger generation.

Not that he is, or it’s so terrible, or totally wrong. Just can’t help observing how the Hippie Boomers are so good at calling everyone else “bad” in 1 way or another.

[squidly]

I’m 38, but it’s the nature of my life and work that I interact with a lot of people in their early twenties on a daily basis. I see some of what the author describes, but I don’t see it as pandemic at all. Virtually everyone of that generation uses the media in question, but I haven’t observed use of such as being a factor in whether or not they are smart and hardworking or dumb and complacent. In those respects, they seem to be no different than any other group of people, meaning that some of them are the former group, and some the latter. Certainly this isn’t scientific, just my own anecdotal observations. I’d be interested in reading the book once it becomes available at the library. Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing I’d spend money on.

[dalereed]

A good depression is whats needed to straighten out 3 generations.

[Anti-Bubba182]

Comparisons of different generations are invidious and usually originate from older observers about younger ones, but they have a long tradition.

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

~SOCRATES (469–399 B.C.)"

[Lexinom]

That's the most ominous implication of Bauerlein's findings. An uneducated citizenry is handy for ambitious politicians but disastrous for the welfare of a republic. At best, the Dumbest Generation might be remembered as useful idiots. At worst, as Bauerlein puts it, it could be remembered as the generation that lost the great American heritage, forever.

They don't give a ##ck. As long as they've got their little Myspace page, their little earphones, their little insignificant and meaningless world --- who cares?

[TheKidster]

I would have to say that if the generation in question is the dumbest, it’s the fault of the boomer generation the most selfish. They ruined the culture, the schools and the media and modeled self service above all other attributes. Tune in, turn on and drop out has been passed down as a moral standard, why would anyone be surprised at the outcome we see.