fdterritory's review against another edition
4.0
As a teacher, I can tell you that Bauerlain's thesis is exactly true. I have always known that my students could learn material in order to regurgitate it on exams, but they had little hope of determining anything past whatever they had made a point of to memorize right before the test. Math students can calculate, but they have no ability to "think mathematically". History students can't attach ideas from one to another. And heaven forbid if your subject isn't "relevant" enough.
The author here gets it right: technology, money, and self-esteem-overload has made many of today's youth spoiled, self-centered, and stupid. There's no nice way to put it, but results are going to be easier to obtain if we're blunt about it. The author makes the argument that intellectualism should be encouraged and not lampooned, and the sooner the better.
The author here gets it right: technology, money, and self-esteem-overload has made many of today's youth spoiled, self-centered, and stupid. There's no nice way to put it, but results are going to be easier to obtain if we're blunt about it. The author makes the argument that intellectualism should be encouraged and not lampooned, and the sooner the better.
mokey81's review against another edition
5.0
This is an incredible book. A little depressing too considering how true the premise is.
I highly recommend this book. Especially to those people that have seen the intellectual deficiency in the younger generations.
I highly recommend this book. Especially to those people that have seen the intellectual deficiency in the younger generations.
thomcat's review against another edition
3.0
Author mixes topics together, presenting as a linked whole. Some topics have only one reasonable side, others are quite debatable. For instance:
Study of prior scientific achievement may lead to breakthroughs, but is that necessarily so with study of prior artistic achievements? What about other skills and studies?
A good overview on the general decline of literacy and competency, regardless.
Study of prior scientific achievement may lead to breakthroughs, but is that necessarily so with study of prior artistic achievements? What about other skills and studies?
A good overview on the general decline of literacy and competency, regardless.
amynbell's review against another edition
3.0
The book is interesting, but I don't agree with all the conclusions that the author makes in the book. I don't think the entire generation is dumb (although many are heading in that direction). And I don't think that the generation necessarily is doomed to have less intellectuals than the previous generations. In my college career (in a different generation), the intellectuals were few and far between. We found each other and stuck together, but I don't think that really ever changes. Granted, the Generation Y intellectuals are probably more likely to do a lot of talking rather than a lot of reading deep into the past, but I know Generation Ys who do seek deeper knowledge.
The author of The Dumbest Generation says that, among Generation Ys, standardized test scores are going down and that fewer people read books (beyond the Harry Potter series). But the numbers just don't seem that significant to me. And I think, too, that there will come a time when these Generation Ys wake up and look beyond themselves and their peers, wanting to learn more about the world around them. One thing I think is that you rarely ever have an Awakening until there is a need for one. It's easy to live in your me-me-me world of self-centered and social networking FaceBook profiles when there's nothing serious going on in the world.
I think, though, that it's the job of educators to notice these things and to teach skills that the Generation Ys don't have because of their media lifestyle. For example, I think that teachers should specifically teach students to pay attention to details and think in specifics rather than generalities. Also, I think that teachers should find a way to show students how reading is relevant to their lives as well as how current events and history are relevant to their lives. Also imperative is that teachers make it very clear to students how to determine if sources for their academic papers (and even for their blogs) are valid sources or not. Once again, it's an issue related to paying attention to detail and being willing to double check your sources.
In conclusion, I don't think Generation Ys are dumb (as the title suggests); I just think that they think differently. And I think it's very important for everyone else to learn to understand them and have dialogues with them so that we can mesh our "cultures" for a positive end result. We have to be willing to meet each other half way and learn from each other.
The author of The Dumbest Generation says that, among Generation Ys, standardized test scores are going down and that fewer people read books (beyond the Harry Potter series). But the numbers just don't seem that significant to me. And I think, too, that there will come a time when these Generation Ys wake up and look beyond themselves and their peers, wanting to learn more about the world around them. One thing I think is that you rarely ever have an Awakening until there is a need for one. It's easy to live in your me-me-me world of self-centered and social networking FaceBook profiles when there's nothing serious going on in the world.
I think, though, that it's the job of educators to notice these things and to teach skills that the Generation Ys don't have because of their media lifestyle. For example, I think that teachers should specifically teach students to pay attention to details and think in specifics rather than generalities. Also, I think that teachers should find a way to show students how reading is relevant to their lives as well as how current events and history are relevant to their lives. Also imperative is that teachers make it very clear to students how to determine if sources for their academic papers (and even for their blogs) are valid sources or not. Once again, it's an issue related to paying attention to detail and being willing to double check your sources.
In conclusion, I don't think Generation Ys are dumb (as the title suggests); I just think that they think differently. And I think it's very important for everyone else to learn to understand them and have dialogues with them so that we can mesh our "cultures" for a positive end result. We have to be willing to meet each other half way and learn from each other.
trevnet's review against another edition
2.0
A little too long and repetitive, but offered some interesting insights.
theravaada's review against another edition
3.0
The 18-year-old may have a Visa card, cell phone, MySpace page, part-time job, PlayStation 2, and an admissions letter from State U., but ask this wired and on-the-go high school senior a few intellectual questions and the façade of in-the-know-ness crumbles.
andrewl600's review against another edition
3.0
Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance if its citizens refuse to grow up?
For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. At the dawn of the digital age, many believed they saw a hopeful answer: The Internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.
That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its consequences for American culture and democracy.
Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, Mark Bauerline presents an uncompromisingly realistic portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.
In the five or so minutes it will probably take you to read this, you will have logged roughly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day, assuming you even bother reading the entire post.
In a world where books and knowledge are at our fingertips, most people choose to avoid them at all costs, causing Mark Bauerlein, the author of The Dumbest Generation, fear for his country’s future.
The way Bauerlein says it, something disastrous has happened to America’s youth with the arrival of the instant gratification age we are currently in.
The result is a loss of knowledge, plain and simple.
Can we really blame people though? I mean what sounds like more fun, scrolling through Instagram or Facebook and checking out your friends’ newest post, or reading a book about Medieval warfare tactics?
Most people would choose Instagram or Facebook.
When Bauerlein told an audience of college students, “You are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the speaker of the U.S. House is,” a voice in the crowd tells him: “ ‘American Idol’ IS more important.”
Young people are a melting pot of “unimportant” knowledge. The important stuff that affects our day to day life, is information we probably don’t know. A celebrities birthday and what their favourite gemstone is? Information we probably know.
And all this feeds on itself. Increasingly disconnected from the “adult” world of tradition, culture, history, context and the ability to sit down for more than five minutes with a book, today’s digital generation is becoming insulated in its own cocoon of bad spelling, civic illiteracy and endless postings. Two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates now score above average on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, up 30% since 1982, he reports.
Now don’t get me wrong. It’s pretty well known that with each new generation, there will be some sort of inevitable change, and with that change will come complaints from the older generation, with reminiscence from the past, and so on, repeating in a never ending cycle.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, for many reasons. When cultural norms change, art, literature, and other creative outlets become more fluid, and people respond to the spirit of the age with an intelligent and relevant civic discourse.
Within Bauerlein’s collected research, some interesting information has come to light.The fact-based, multiple-choice approach to education has hampered our ability to “think historically,” meaning young Americans have difficulties placing current events in relation to their historical contexts.
Equally, our ability to do basic math and our reading proficiency continues to drop. In a 2005 survey cited in the book, respondents aged 15-to-24 only read anything for eight minutes on a weekday and nine minutes on the weekend, while clocking hours and hours watching TV or surfing the Internet. These are just a few shockers that Bauerlein reveals, but not all of his statistical evidence points toward depressing trends.
At the same time, technology is making our IQ’s go up, and Bauerlein reveals how IQ tests have become more complex to meet our growing intelligence.
If you’re reading this blog post, you probably don’t apply to this book as much as others, but it is never the less something that worries me. How can I trust my future to a bunch of people who ate tide pods and can’t go without their phones for more than five minutes?
For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on their futures. At the dawn of the digital age, many believed they saw a hopeful answer: The Internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The terms “information superhighway” and “knowledge economy” entered the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the vanguards of this new digital era.
That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn’t happen. The technology that was supposed to make young adults more astute, diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the opposite effect. According to recent reports, most young people in the United States do not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on a map. The Dumbest Generation is a startling examination of the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its consequences for American culture and democracy.
Drawing upon exhaustive research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis, Mark Bauerline presents an uncompromisingly realistic portrait of the young American mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of how we might address its deficiencies.
In the five or so minutes it will probably take you to read this, you will have logged roughly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day, assuming you even bother reading the entire post.
In a world where books and knowledge are at our fingertips, most people choose to avoid them at all costs, causing Mark Bauerlein, the author of The Dumbest Generation, fear for his country’s future.
The way Bauerlein says it, something disastrous has happened to America’s youth with the arrival of the instant gratification age we are currently in.
The result is a loss of knowledge, plain and simple.
Can we really blame people though? I mean what sounds like more fun, scrolling through Instagram or Facebook and checking out your friends’ newest post, or reading a book about Medieval warfare tactics?
Most people would choose Instagram or Facebook.
When Bauerlein told an audience of college students, “You are six times more likely to know who the latest American Idol is than you are to know who the speaker of the U.S. House is,” a voice in the crowd tells him: “ ‘American Idol’ IS more important.”
Young people are a melting pot of “unimportant” knowledge. The important stuff that affects our day to day life, is information we probably don’t know. A celebrities birthday and what their favourite gemstone is? Information we probably know.
And all this feeds on itself. Increasingly disconnected from the “adult” world of tradition, culture, history, context and the ability to sit down for more than five minutes with a book, today’s digital generation is becoming insulated in its own cocoon of bad spelling, civic illiteracy and endless postings. Two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates now score above average on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, up 30% since 1982, he reports.
Now don’t get me wrong. It’s pretty well known that with each new generation, there will be some sort of inevitable change, and with that change will come complaints from the older generation, with reminiscence from the past, and so on, repeating in a never ending cycle.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, for many reasons. When cultural norms change, art, literature, and other creative outlets become more fluid, and people respond to the spirit of the age with an intelligent and relevant civic discourse.
Within Bauerlein’s collected research, some interesting information has come to light.The fact-based, multiple-choice approach to education has hampered our ability to “think historically,” meaning young Americans have difficulties placing current events in relation to their historical contexts.
Equally, our ability to do basic math and our reading proficiency continues to drop. In a 2005 survey cited in the book, respondents aged 15-to-24 only read anything for eight minutes on a weekday and nine minutes on the weekend, while clocking hours and hours watching TV or surfing the Internet. These are just a few shockers that Bauerlein reveals, but not all of his statistical evidence points toward depressing trends.
At the same time, technology is making our IQ’s go up, and Bauerlein reveals how IQ tests have become more complex to meet our growing intelligence.
If you’re reading this blog post, you probably don’t apply to this book as much as others, but it is never the less something that worries me. How can I trust my future to a bunch of people who ate tide pods and can’t go without their phones for more than five minutes?
theartolater's review against another edition
I didn’t finish this book. I was about 3/4ths of the way through when I finally just got frustrated with it. It’s not his premise, but the smugness and apparent fear of what’s new and the new reality of information and information availability. One of the most frustrating parts of being a librarian was the self-preservation aspect many in the field have - Google is horrible because it just dumps information out there, we need gatekeepers of information to keep bad info out, etc - and this was the same concept in many ways. I wonder if people had these same fears when books became printable for mass consumption as opposed to only for the rich. There’s a whole other rant about this, but when will the people in charge stop worrying about the fact that information is available to everyone and start dealing with how to teach our kids to think more critically?
lizziekam's review against another edition
3.0
This book, published in 2008, is technologically obsolete; it was written before the iPhone and the Facebook explosion. However, I think those two technologies have only exacerbated the problem elucidated by Bauerlein's book: that the promise of the Information Age has actually made young people more insular, more narcissistic and less educated and curious. Armed with surveys, test results and other statistics to back up his thesis, Bauerlein shows how, despite massive investment in computers, wiring, and other technology infrastructure, that American students have shown no learning gains, and in fact, American students continue to slip in comparison to their international peers.
This book confirms my own concerns and provides back up for the limits I place on my kids' use of technology, but there are some issues with this book. First, to repeat, the technology climate has already changed completely with the advent of the smartphone and the cultural dominance of Facebook & Twitter. Also, he never makes any suggestions for how parents or educators can turn the tide. It seems that advising some common sense limits on kids' use of technology would be advisable. Nor does he ever point out some truly valuable ways that technology has transformed learning in positive ways. Finally, I think any book that generalizes about "young people today" is dangerously close to being relegated to the geezer pile.
This book confirms my own concerns and provides back up for the limits I place on my kids' use of technology, but there are some issues with this book. First, to repeat, the technology climate has already changed completely with the advent of the smartphone and the cultural dominance of Facebook & Twitter. Also, he never makes any suggestions for how parents or educators can turn the tide. It seems that advising some common sense limits on kids' use of technology would be advisable. Nor does he ever point out some truly valuable ways that technology has transformed learning in positive ways. Finally, I think any book that generalizes about "young people today" is dangerously close to being relegated to the geezer pile.
fangirlsread's review against another edition
4.0
Bauerlein's writing is forceful and full of conviction; he never relents from his primary thesis (essentially that traditional literacy skills are waning- or completely gone- from the young and this is causing them to be the titular Dumbest Generation, and technology is facilitating this) and cites copious amounts of studies and research to support his point. He acknowledges the opposing side (how great technology is and cases of remarkably smart youngsters) but fervently negates this with his own argument and overwhelming support. It's surprisingly dense, but I enjoyed it. Bauerlein challenges you to think deeply (his main argument is that thinking critically is no longer happening) and to remind yourself that the minority cannot save the majority. I'd recommend it because I do feel this is a conversation that people outside of schools should be having, not just in the classroom.