Mark Bauerlein’s assumption that all people who are younger than 30 suffer from idiocy rests solely upon the assumption of the connotative definition of being dumb; his is that someone who is dumb is someone who does not know factual information. Despite what Bauerlein says about how people these days are members of the “dumbest generation”, children and young adults are in fact members of the smartest generation to be seen in recent decades. According to Sharon Begley, a science columnist from Newsweek, she states in her article that “If dumb means lacking such fundamental cognitive capacities as the ability to think critically and logically, to analyze an argument, to learn and remember, to see analogies, to distinguish fact from opinion… …show more content…
We have also begun something that Clive Thompson and Andrea Lunsford both agree upon; that the “dumbest generation” is in the “midst of a literacy revolution.” Teenagers will communicate with one another, that’s obvious. They talk, Skype, and most commonly, text. Most of the time teenagers will be texting nonstop: to their parents, friends, or whomever they desire. But texting is bad, isn’t it? According to Andrea Lunsford, texting is the root cause of this revolution. For children and young adults, all communication is done through writing. Whether it be emails, text messages, chat rooms, or more formal projects such as essays, assignments, or journals, all is mostly completed by writing. With all of these uses of writing, the “dumbest generation” writes exceedingly more than their parents generation, whom would only write in school or in jobs that required it. According to Lunsford, the technical level of writing has improved as well, “The students were remarkably adept at what rhetoricians call kairos - assessing their audience and adapting their tone and technique to best get their point across” (Lunsford qtd Thompson). The children of the “dumbest generation” so far have been able to do the impossible. We have redefined the social barriers that prevented us from being a socially equal and innovative society, we have allowed the classroom setting to be more self taught …show more content…
Based off a survey done by “What Americans Know: 1989-2007” in Bauerliens article, “56 percent of 18- to 29-year olds possessed low knowledge levels, while only 22 percent of 50- to 64-year olds did.” In layman's terms, this survey means that the majority of the young adults in the world know little “intellectual information.” Bauerlein is not the first person to speak out about the younger generation struggling with information. R. Smith Simpson, an author from an article in the 1962 issue of the government’s Foreign Service Journal. Simpson states, “An abysmal ignorance of so elementary a subject as the geography of the United States… elementary economics and social data… so with historical, sociological, and cultural.” Even from 1962 and earlier, people have been criticizing the younger generations for their lack of knowledge of factual information, thinking because we do not know “elementary facts”, we cannot be smart. The issue with that thinking is, what is more important, knowing or finding information? In my opinion, finding it is more important. Technology is an indispensable occurrence in our lives. Because of this, it makes getting to an internet source very easy, therefore making the process of getting
In the article “Clive Thompson on the New Literacy,” writer Clive Thompson argues that the widespread use of technology and social media does not make kids illiterate and unable to form coherent sentences, but instead, keeps them actively writing and learning. Thompson’s article is based off of a study done by Andrea Lunsford, a writing professor at Stanford University. Thompson agrees with Lunsford that the use of social media and the Internet allow students to be creative and get better at writing. In his article, Thompson quotes John Sutherland, an English professor at University College of London, to inform the audience of the opposite side of the argument. He states, “Facebook encourages narcissistic blabbering, video and PowerPoint have
“The Dumbest Generation” is a title no group of people want to behold. Nonetheless, people under age thirty have been given this belittling title. To those who go off questions about obsolete general knowledge rather than the ability to take in and evaluate knowledge, this title may seem quite fitting. However, Millennials aren’t quite as dull as they’ve been perceived to be. The ability of Millennials to absorb information, rather than know general facts, and their use of contemporary technology as reading and writing resources has proven that they are quite an innovative and bright generation.
In “Cultural Illiteracy,” a preface to the novel The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein critically evaluates how technological distractions affect the younger generation. Bauerlein states that “digital diversions” are cutting the younger generation off from culturally enhancing mediums and is in turn making the younger generation less intelligent. Though Bauerlein is correct about the increase of peer pressure due to technology, he is mistaken about how technology is making the younger generation unintelligent.
She argues, “Now I suggest that the culture in which they develop tempts them into narcissistic ways of relating to the world” (244). The author argues that the society in which young adults grow up, reflects on their view of the world. Growing up in a technologically advanced society, teens seem ill prepared to deal with their day to day surroundings that require social interaction. Many millennials show little interest in anything dealing in the past. Instead, they are focused on the future and the next great technological advancement. Lastly, at the end of her essay, Turkle expresses the true social issues of teens due to the abundance of technology. She claims, “teenagers who will only ‘speak’ online, who rigorously avoid face-to-face encounters, who are in text connect with their parents fifteen or twenty times a day, who deem even a telephone call ‘too much’ (243). Turkle claims that there are consequences resulting on the heavy reliance of technology. Teens only speak over text and cannot even speak on the telephone, because they are too internal. Rather than speaking externally with others, teens are quiet while only communicating with themselves and over the phone. They would rather write words, than speak them. This is creating a generation of young adults who are not comfortable in normal social
Mark Bauerlein the author of The Dumbest Generation, claims that people under thirty are the dumbest generation in modern history. Many people call us the dumbest generation because we have the Internet. The Internet does not make our generation “dumb”, it makes us one of the most advanced generation yet. There is much evidence to support both side however it is clearly evident that this generation is not the dumbest.
In today’s society many technological advances have contributed to advanced communication. While these are advantageous and can improve communication across the globe, they have become a hindrance to critical thinking. With the advancement of technology throughout the world human beings are able to think less while still “functioning.” Literacy is thrown to the wayside and texting “lingo” runs rampant. Why read a book when you can watch the movie? Students are becoming less interested in language, reading, and writing and more involved with surfing the web for answers. This shift in the value of literacy opens the world up to many dangers that if not confronted and demolished could lead to a society unable to think for themselves.
America is slowly “dumbing down”, according to Psychology Today, due to a rising and devastating movement of anti- intellectualism in the American culture. It rejects matters of science, art, and humanities because of superiority, ignorance, and just from being naïve to situations. Anti –intellectualism is when a person disregards intellect and reason in solving viable situations and understanding the reality of the situation; but, instead uses action and emotions to solve them. Now, this is not saying that those who are uneducated and unintelligent are classified as anti-intellectualist; even those who are educated and judicious are subjective. It is said best by David Niose, “Social dysfunction can be traced to the abandonment of reason.”
While preparing for one of his college lectures, Dennis Baron, a professor and linguistics at the University of Illinois, began playing with the idea of how writing has changed the world we lived in and materials and tools we use in everyday life. This lecture slowly transitioned into “Should Everybody Write?” An article that has made many wonder if technology has made writing too easy for anyone to use or strengthens a writer's ability to learn and communicate their ideas. Baron uses rhetorical strategies in his article to portray to his audience his positive tone, the contrast and comparison of context and his logical purpose.
Most people say being stupid will lead no where. They claim that it is the worst possible condition in which to spend one's life, and if possible, it should be completely avoided. They would even suggest if the symptoms of stupidity are caught in the early stages, it could easily be treated by a surgeon. Yet, perhaps if people took a closer look at some of the advantages stupidity had to offer, they wouldn't have such a negative attitude toward it. After reading this paper, one will understand the advantages of stupidity along the lines of work ethic and even how their minds work. I will also show you that they have a large amount of free time and how they are forever ingrained in the minds of the more intelligent.
Have you ever wondered if our generation is the dumbest? Well, there’s some evidence to prove so. Generation ‘Y’ is considered to be the dumbest generation of all. This is based on numerous experiments, polls, surveys, etc. While everything else in this world is rising, intellect of each generation is falling. With the ignorance of facts, by choice, and lack of some education, Generation ‘Y’ is considered to be the dumbest generation.
Younger children not stupid they just completely thinking in different ways, there are four step-wise sequence of mental development during childhood.
Looking back over the course of the semester, I feel that I learned many new and interesting uses for technology within the classroom – both for classrooms that have a lot of technology and for classrooms that are limited with technology. For the majority of the class, we utilized William Kists’ book The Socially Networked Classroom: Teaching in the New Media Age (2010), which provided multiple modes of instruction that both utilized and/or created technology. One of the first things that I remember, and consequently that stuck with me through the course’s entirety, is that individuals must treat everything as a text. Even a garden is a text. The statement made me change the way that I traditionally viewed Language Arts both as a student and as a teacher, as I very narrowly saw literature and works of the like as texts only; however, by considering nearly anything as a text, one can analyze, study, and even expand his/her knowledge. Kist (2010) states that society is “experiencing a vast transformation of the way we “read” and “write,” and a broadening of the way we conceptualize “literacy” (p. 2). In order to begin to experience and learn with the modern classroom and technologically advanced students, individuals must begin to see new things as literature and analyze those things in a similar manner.
Texting is killing language,” Ted starts off the video by saying that “The idea is that texting spells the decline and fall of any kind of serious literacy, or at least writing ability, among young people in the United States and now the whole world today (Ted, 2013). Throughout the film discussion, what stuck out to me the most was how drastic language has changed via technology.
Socializing is not just talking face to face, it’s our ability to interact, learn, and create original thoughts. Technology is hindering today’s youth and their ability to socialize is affecting their capacity to read, write, and communicate. Today’s youth depend on careful considerations for the implementation of technology. Our youth do not have the capability to convey their emotions through the use of technology, understand sadness, happiness or joy through simple text or emails. Communicating through the use of text, chat, and social network sites is lost using abbreviations and slang, inhibiting the use of the Standard English language.
I strongly believe that people of my generation are smarter and more intelligent than our ancestors, while my grandparents disagree with this idea. I see that the present-day discovery of scientific facts and modern technology help shaping our idea of the world and lead us to the better understanding of the world, by giving us skill of swiftness, convenient access to information and fact of nature, and correcting the false myths. Also, brand-new style of teaching allows kids these days to be more creative and confident than those in the old days, as students are allowed to use ask their teacher when in doubt, and join an open discussion in class.