8 reasons why this is the dumbest generation

"...these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them."

This guy is going through some kind of mid life crisis, he's bitter and wrong. Most of my friends know and are quite interested in current events and actively participate in discussion both in person and.. (gasp) online... In fact I would argue that our technology helps us stay more in tune with the goings on in the world than any other generation before us. Maybe he's mistaking our ability to comfortably absorb more information on a daily basis than his ever had to as disregard for news.

"On MySpace, if you write clearly and compose coherent paragraphs with informed observations on history and current events, 'buddies' will make fun of you''

Wow. Our generation is able to use humor in our conversations! That's amazing! Too bad this guy doesn't get our jokes and then feels forced to write books about how dumb we are... I think someones feeling a little left out.... :(

"Lack of capitalization and IM codes dominate online writing. Without spellcheck, folks are toast."

Scr3w U 2! :)

I'm pretty ashamed to be a member of this generation, and think I pretty much go against all of these stereotypes.

It disappoints me to no end that kids in this generation can't read a book or spell properly. It makes me wonder what the next generation will be like. :(

If we are dumb its because of inept educational policies that have left us in the trough for more than a decade. We are an amalgum as are all generations. We are more then the fin de sicele we are the fin de millenium!

It'll be the same. As was the last generation before us.

Kids, like you, that are unabashedly intelligent and communicative, have always been around and always will. Dumb kids will also be here too. Who else is gonna sell the weed?

I'm proud of our generation and think that we are going to be fine stewards of this country once our parents stop voting for the douchbags of their generation...

Also an interesting side note: We are in fact getting a little smarter. IQ scores are rising on average 3 points a decade...

Wait...

What?

How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future"

That's so true. *continues reading computer screen.

Wow. Way to make a broad generalization about our generation as a whole and then try to profit off of it. Wow in the spirit of this douche I have something to say.

In the fifties everyone believed in space aliens.

In the sixties everyone took drugs in the efforts to become GODS!

In the seventies everyone took drugs and listened to disco

I’m not even going to bring up the eighties, its way to painful

In the nineties punk was dead.

Ok so everyone is an idiot.

8 reasons why this is the dumbest generationNext Previous

3. They can't spell
Lack of capitalization and IM codes dominate online writing. Without spellcheck, folks are toast.

It's not that "they can't spell". The grammatical errors and use of numbers in place of words is to make it more casual.

Try spelin liek dis on currnt.cm tho, and c wat happens.

Use of incorrect grammar and misspeling isn't a sign of stupidity, it's mostly carelessness and ignorance. I'm sure the top writes of today and years past misspelt every now and then.

This guy Bauerlein is a prof. It's him and people like him's fault that we're so dumb! Teachers are failing students! The whole public education system is failing students.

7. Because their teachers don't tell them so
Or because their parents don't check their bedrooms at midnight to halt the instant messaging..."Kids are drowning in teen stuff delivered 24/7 by the tools, and adult realities can't penetrate," Bauerlein says. Another factor: "It's the era of child-centered classrooms and self-esteem grading.''

See!

Right, we're the dumbest generation? How many older illiterate adults are flipping burgers with us? Exactly!

I think that language is something which evolves over-time (e.g. there aren't any true forms that need to be adhered to; only norms which are developed). The way we write shows our allegiance.

When these new Internet applications (irc, im, email) came along, maybe a more conversational form of language was required. I'd like to think that most people can write a sentence with proper punctuation and stuff, like, when they need to, innit.

It's not constructive to make generalisations about a generation. Different strokes for different folks - there have always been people who say they don't care.

However, I do tend to feel that the idiots are winning (but maybe that's because I'm a bit of an elitist ****?)... I dunno.

moron

every generation says that about the next...
(to feel better about themselves, maybe?)

lol

but seriously though, see how this world is doin fool, did we screw things up like this?

we are the ones that are going to try and fix it, (que alternativa hay?)

don't get me mad or i won't pay for your Social Security... :P

I can't believe this douche is trying to profit from this! Must not be making it as a professor.

Their generation has been constantly and actively f#@cking up our future potential and success as individuals and as a nation in this world, so not our generation, no. yours.

No kidding, their generations are what caused the world to be in the state it is and their generations are the ones that continue to live life like nothing is wrong! We can't pretend like it is all ok anymore, well, you can because your time on this planet is limited! We have to think about our children, and their children, hell we have to think about ourselves too!! This planet is in serious trouble and it is dire that we take action immediately!

Meh, lame article. Blaming the students for their culture crumbling around them is a tad unfair. Don't complain that they don't read books! TEACH them to read and MAKE them read and they will learn to enjoy it!

He probably was a Hillary supporter, targeting Barack's strong hold, the same reasons they do it here on this website too. The old vs. change, change has already beat out old it's just when is old going to accept it. That applies to this election as much as it applies for how we will fix this planet in peril.

oh the irony - sending his important message in book form!

This generation had the brilliance to combine the low rise jeans and the thong.

Oh my god Iwhi that’s amazing! Bravo.

Many of the "old" like 69 year old Russell Means, 73 year old hibakusha artist Hideo Sakata San, 70 year old Rosebud Lakotah artist and great grandmother Muriel Antoine, 40 something Dine activist Pearl Daniels Means, 49 year old environmental Anishinabe activist Winona LaDuke, 49 year old Martin Luther King III, 50 something Congressman John Lewis, 30 something Arturo Archuleta Spanish Land Grant Heir and community organizer from Tia Amarilla, New Mexico and Pilar Agoyo community environmentalist and member of Maxwell Land Grant and many more of us "old" people ffrom many cultures have been working all our lives for change and want it now too.

We don't all agree on how to affect that change and how best to achieve it, but being old does make some wiser, and, just as there are conformists of every generation and in every group, there are many voices for change in every generation.

There are many brilliant youth in this generation, and the smartest old leaders I know spend lots of time hanging and listening to them.

We don't like to read? Well who has he talked to? I know a lot of students (myself included) who love to read whenever we get a chance.

First of all, there are plenty of kids who are smart. Unfortunately, the ones who are dumb have apparently and effectively overshadowed the smart ones(At least in the media limelight).

Second, his reasons are completely ludicrious as to why young people are dumb. Video Games? Age? Text messages and IM language? C'mon! Perhaps the teachers would be to blame, but most likely the student/teacher ratio averages at 30:1 across the country. You should blame the federal government for underfunding the schools, which would enable them to hire more teachers so individual students can recieve more help and attention.

The media is FAR worse in exploiting and stunting our youth's mental growth. For the most part, they shovel meaningless information into your brain, like how much Britney Spears is paying Kevin Federline for child support, or how Miley Cyrus is exposing her back in a magazine and why is should piss you off. Even politics is like this(i.e. the lapel pin issue, the standing during pledge of allegiance, associates with "extreme" opinions, etc), pandering to the pop culture values of our society.

If this crackpot professor wants something to blame for the lack of intellectual growth in young people, then he should lobby for the abolishment of college tutition. If the govenrment took only a few billion from the 400-billion dollar a year defense budget to pay for student tutition, then I'm sure they could foot the bill for everyone in college right now.

It's hypocritical to condemn the next generation for lacking the motivation to persue greater education while at the same time not recognizing the barrier that exists between them and college. Yes, some kids may be flipping burgers, but who said they didn't want to go to school? Perhaps they just can't afford to on minimum wage. Besides, getting a college education these days doesn't exactly net you the job you have a degree in, and those student loans won't pay themselves.

Wow. Wanna get really pissed? You should read the comments that people are leaving on the Boston.com site.. They're pretty much all agreeing with him...

i would say it is hard to dispute, we did elect bush for 2 terms.

We didn't elect and reelect Bush, they did.

What does that say about the intelligence of baby boomers?

Let's not forget that none of _them_ read books, they ushered in this era of ignorance and corruption. They are the idle, unprotesting, unquestioning generation that got all of their news from the television. 60% of THEM believe that the rapture is coming in their lifetimes. Which generation is stupid again?

If your kids are stupid, it's because you're stupid.

riverdeer, speak for yourself. I didn't elect Bush into office(I voted for the other doucebag, Kerry), the cheating officials in Florida and Ohio did.

I agree. I think that this generation uses our new digital tools to scrape by, rather than using them to set a higher bar for future generations. I mean, look at me, I'm here typing a few lines of text while my father probably would have been writing papers for his classes by hand or reading a book. (he is an English teacher, after all)

In a world where you can get what you want as fast as you want to get it, many people don't put a whole lot of effort into their work, or their minds.

Science and Math standards as well as the amount of credits needed to graduate high school have all gone up as has the price of college while government aid has stayed static or dropped and college loans have become rife with profiteering and scandal. We aren't dumb we're normal despite the problems that have been thrown our way. Where we are different is we are going to the polls to voice our frustrations in record numbers. I'd say that makes us smarter than any American generation was at our age.

I think this is just a crude attack by an old man who doesn't want to accept change!

I'd like to say that in reference to #5 that they make the unreasonable connection that "all that video use, Bauerlein says, has hurt in the classroom, too. Thousands of Massachusetts public school graduates are ending up in remedial reading and writing classes in college." What is the connection there? That school can seem more boring than playing video games? Duh. But the fact that there is no solid connection tying the popularity of video games with the failure of students is disgusting. Even the Globe article referenced doesn't make the connection. This genius professor is just singing the same old song ridiculing our generation's shortcomings on things not present in their generation. Bull shit.

so what .

ultravphunter:

It's not how much you say or do that is important, it's what you say or do. You can say more intelligent things in a line or two of text than some people put into a whole article or book.

Just because we use technology to make our lives easier doesn't necessarily mean we are lazy. It means we're smart, in direct contradiction to what this article implies. Is it any coincidence that the man who wrote this comes from a generation who is not used to technological interactivity on this level, with members who can't properly use the internet?

Oh, and I just read the forum. Everyone for this guy sounds really stupid, making brash generalizations unsubstantiated by fact or even fiction. I really hope I don't lose sight of what I'm thinking now when I get old, otherwise I might just kill myself.

Did any of you read the last reason? "Because they're young." That has to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard! Of course we're not as smart, because we AREN'T OLD LIKE YOU! We haven't had all the same life experience, because we weren't alive when the dinosaurs were! I swear, this article is making me think that the over-thirty generation is the stupidest generation.

Most of them use the grossest generalizations that even if the applied to a few specific people it in no way hold true for an entire generation and some of them could apply to several of the last generations.

What do you want to bet he's the kind of guy that growls and yells for kids to get off his lawn?

It's mixed. I'm scared for my generation and generations coming after me. We're becoming increasingly reliant on technology for basic things. We've divided and organized and placed everything
into little boxes that we can't undo.

If people are complaining that each generation is lazier than the one that came before it then why do the older generations keep putting such emphasis on convenience?
And why are they inventing and teaching kids these the things which they are complaining about? Kids will follow, and observe and be gullible.
Free and creative thought is squashed by American philosophies of standardization. (that virus started with interchangeable parts, my friends, and went downhill from there)
Ambition is being replaced with competition and making more money and a living and being respectable.
I think its good, though, that formalities and traditions are becoming outdated. Just not so good that the discipline and appreciation they created are getting muddled and lost with them.
We are a species that is getting less and less capable despite all these 'advancements'. I lament over the cell phones and the GPS and fast food and efficiency. every person is incapable of existing in environments outside of human control. We don't care about anything except the world people created.

We're going to turn into robots one day by incorporating 'technology' into every aspect of our lives. Into our flesh and bone and brain. Born fleshy and embarrassed we'll transform ourselves to be less vulnerable but we'll destroy everything natural and beautiful. abolition of self-control and appreciation of what is given and not made. Pull out our lives like taffy until statistics and quantities are applauded and all of our ways are kaput.
I guess thats evolution. Right? Survival of the fittest.

I'm 16 by the way. A young young young young young person. I'm sorry if my words don't fit together exactly, I hope you know what I mean. Sometimes i think too fast and scattered. It's a different culture emerging.