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Well, I am finally finished with reading "The Dumbest Generation" by Mark Bauerlein who basically spent 236 pages telling me that I am dumb. He does make a pretty interesting argument though that is extremely relevant to my generation and me.
Bauerlein is arguing that the newest generation
in America is drastically underachieving when it comes to their massive
potential. He says that the powerful and helpful technology that we have today
that has the potential to drive learning and knowledge gaining to a whole new
level is simply serving to shorten our attention spans and sour our minds with
instant gratification. With everything
available to us at the push of a button the youth today have no incentive to
work or gain knowledge because if they really needed to know something it can
be found in two seconds, and the social aspects of always being connected
control the focus of kids that could be spent on building intelligence and
becoming cultured. Bauerlein argues this by utilizing a vast number of
statistics and polls to show how kids are reading less, spending more time “connected”,
and not fulfilling their role in becoming a cultured citizen to further our
society. During this however he also touches on how teachers are somewhat
responsible for this trend, embracing the children’s attitude and going along
with the decline in true learning. Bauerlein repeatedly argues that America’s
youth are on the decline when it comes to intelligence and capabilities, and
that with this lack of progress in intelligence to correspond to progress in
technology, the future for America and its future leaders looks dim.
One passage that I thought was really interesting was when Bauerlein explained some new data on the reading styles of youth:
“A similar study of Web reading came out of Nielsen’s ‘Alertbox’
in April 2006 with the title ‘F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content.’ Here
the eyetracker picked up a curious movement in user scanning. ‘F for Fast,’ it opened. ‘That’s how users read
your precious content. In a few seconds, their eyes move at amazing speeds
across your website’s words in a pattern that’s very different from what you
learned in school.’ The pattern looks like the capital letter F. At the top of
the page, users read all the way across, but as they proceed their descent
quickens and horizontal movement shortens, with a slowdown around the middle of
the page. Near the bottom of the page, the eyes move almost vertically, forming
the lower stem of the F shape.”
-pg 144
This passage was interesting to me because I had never really thought about it that much before, but I realized that it is completely true. Sometimes I find myself reading an article that I soon get bored with and begin scanning less and less across as I go down. I don't do this with school assignments but in the newspaper, definitely. Most of the things Bauerlein highlights in this book about students intellectual habits don't apply to me but this one did.
Another passage that I like from Bauerlein came toward the end as he was wrapping up his argument:
“It isn’t funny anymore. The Dumbest Generation cares little
for history books, civic principles, foreign affairs, comparative religions,
and serious media and art, and it knows less. Careening through their formative
years, they don’t catch the knowledge bug, and tradition might as well be a foreign word. Other things monopolize
their attention—the allure of screens, peer absorption, career goals. They are
latter-day Rip Van Winkles, sleeping through the movements of culture and
events of history, preferring the company of peers to great books and powerful
ideas and momentous happenings (. . .) Adolescence is always going to be more
or less anti-intellectual (. . .) but the battle has never proven so uphill.
Youth culture and youth society, fabulously autonomized by digital technology,
swamp the intellectual pockets holding on against waves of pop culture and teen
mores, and the Boomer mentors have lowered the bulwarks to surmountable heights
(. . .) Books can’t hold their own with screen images,”
-pg 234
I thought this excerpt was very compelling because he stops showering the readers with statistics and gives the message to them straightforward. I also agreed with what he is saying because I see the trends in many of my peers. This passage was one of the most effective in getting me to agree with the author's argument.
There were some passages that I didn't really agree with such as one relating to rates in reading:
“As digital natives dive daily into three visual media and
two sound sources as a matter of disposition, of deep mental compatibility, not
just taste, ordinary reading, slow and uniform, strikes them as imcompatible,
alien. It isn’t just boring and obsolete. It’s irritating. A Raymond Chandler
novel takes too long, an Emily Dickinson poem wears them down. A history book
requires too much contextual knowledge, and science facts come quicker through the
Web than through A Brief History of Time.
Bibliophobia is the syndrome. Technophiles cast the young media-savvy
sensibility as open and flexible, and it is, as long as the media come through
a screen or a speaker. But faced with 100 paper pages, the digital mind turns
away. The bearers of e-literacy reject books the way eBay addicts reject
bricks-and-mortar stores.”
-pg 95
I don't agree with the argument he is making in this section that my generation is worse off because we don't read as many books as previous generations. I think that the decision to look up something online in ten seconds rather than read a book searching for it is a very rational decision that is time efficient in our ever so valuable time. At least for me, as I am getting older I have been reading less and less not because reading isn't appealing to me, but because there is simply not enough time in the day.
Another passage that I didn't agree with had to do with what we can get out of technological advances:
"They do not pause to consider that screen experience may contain factors that cannot be overcome by better tools and better implementation. This is the possibility that digital enthusiasts must face before they peddle any more books on screen intelligence or commit $15 million to another classroom initiative (. . .) Digital natives are a restless group, and like all teens and young adults they are self-assertive and insecure, living in the moment but worrying over their future (. . .) It is time to examine clear-sightedly how their worse dispositions play out online, or in a game, or on a blog, or with the remote, the cell phone, or the handheld, and to recognize that their engagement with technology actually aggravates a few key and troubling tendencies."
-pg 126
I think that Bauerlein is trying to implicitly say that technological advancement is detrimental to our learning and I do not agree with that. I think that having so many more resources available to us enhances our learning experience if we choose to use them. Even if many people choose not to utilize them, it doesn't make them useless, it is the fault of the users and not the fault of the technology if intelligence gains to match the technological gains are not seen.
- Overall, I think that Bauerlein makes a valid argument
and his method of reasoning and explaining his argument is done relatively
well, but his ways of persuading were not very appealing. At many times he just
rambled on listing facts and cherrypicking statistics that are very real, but
that only support his viewpoint and at some points overshadow the argument that
he is actually trying to make. I did like the anecdote about Rip Van Winkle and
the comparison to the youth today. He should have included more analogies like
that to create a better understanding for the audience of what his argument is
rather than just listing of pages and pages of facts that at many points the
audience must analyze themselves. His argument is very valid and he uses
credible data and logic to support his claims, but I think his method of
arguing was not very effective because he relied much too heavily on
cherrypicking statistics and outright criticizing the effects of technology on
our society rather than truly analyzing the data provided and looking at the
various perspectives surrounding it. Bauerlein makes a reasonable argument that may be true for the majority of my generation, but it is not for me so I can't buy into it. I also think he is unfair to the technological progress made in our society because he treats it like a bad thing, when I think it's exactly the opposite, and many people would agree.
I remembered watching a video a few years ago on technological advancement in our society and the information age that is relevant to this topic so I decided to include it. It includes many statistics, some that could be used to support Bauerlein's argument and some that couldn't be, but the argument that it is making is simply that our society and its technology is advancing at an astounding rate that is only going to increase.
I was also looking around at some websites that completely backup Bauerleins arguments of the stupidity and ignorance our my generation. I found a site with some RIDICULOUS facebook posts and they are hilarious. Check it out:
Well, even though I am doing one of the things that is exactly what Bauerlein says is the bane of my generation, blogging on the internet, I know that I am one of the exceptions of my generation and I am going to continue to learn, to work hard, and to prove him wrong.
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