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The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30) by Mark Bauerlein
www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Ge.../1585426393
Picked this up at the library today and expect to enjoy it.
I know that *some* kids are on the HYP track (-Harvard / Yale / Princeton) by kindergarten and are so relentlessly scheduled they have to make appointments to chat with friends. But most American teenage school kids spend more time watching television than doing homework. As Harold Bloom put it in a blurb on the cover, this is “an urgent and pragmatic book on the very dark topic of the virtual end of reading among the young.”
This, I think, is more than simple carping about ‘kids today.’ Will lexical elitists become a thing of the past?
www.amazon.com/Dumbest-Ge.../1585426393
Picked this up at the library today and expect to enjoy it.
I know that *some* kids are on the HYP track (-Harvard / Yale / Princeton) by kindergarten and are so relentlessly scheduled they have to make appointments to chat with friends. But most American teenage school kids spend more time watching television than doing homework. As Harold Bloom put it in a blurb on the cover, this is “an urgent and pragmatic book on the very dark topic of the virtual end of reading among the young.”
This, I think, is more than simple carping about ‘kids today.’ Will lexical elitists become a thing of the past?
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Wed, April 22, 2009 - 2:57 AM"Will lexical elitists become a thing of the past? "
Easy (if not really conclusive) test: what's the age distribution of this tribe? I'm 49. If nobody here is under 30, "will" should be replaced by "have". -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Wed, April 22, 2009 - 7:25 AMI agree that is an inconclusive test. For one thing, there may be lexial elitists who do not belong to this tribe. For another, a person under 30 may join later today. It's also possible that in, say, 50 years there will be a renaisance of reading such that lexical elitism is prevalent among the young. (I hope so, though I have my doubts.)
For the record, I am 50. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Wed, April 22, 2009 - 7:52 AMLexical elitism exists amongst the young, it's just not geared towards academic/literary lexicons. Instead it tends to be geared towards those who can be creative with language...so, more about slang and knowing and being able to create expressions that encapsulate youthful experiences and perspectives. It's exclusive in a different way but still both elitist and intentionally exclusive. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Thu, April 23, 2009 - 1:18 PMI think there are valid fears in every generation about dumbing down, and in this one there is a fear that our reliance on computers, mobile phones and the like. At the Soc for Editors and Proofreaders conference here in the UK last year, David Crystal (www.davidcrystal.com/) spoke about the influence of e-mail, texting and IM on the language ability of young people, and the conclusion was that if anything it had improved.
He pointed out that young people would substitute numbers 4 words (as an example), but this was as much as being rebelious (perhaps a little lazy), pushing boundaries, being inventive, and wanting to exclude others (parents and adults), whilst being inclusive of their peers. To be fair, this sophistication does depend an awareness of what rules you're breaking, but I know as a teenager my friends and I did similar things.
Saying that, I'm sure there are other factors as well. I'd say ignorance of the wider world, science, environmental pressures and socio-political structures and alliances. Plus if we assume dumbness is roughly the same percentage from generation to generation, the fact that there's more of us means we're subjected to it more often. I will look out for the book, though. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Thu, April 23, 2009 - 3:45 PMBobster - Thanks for posting about David Crystal. I suspect old people have always whined about how much stupider young people are (while conveniently forgetting how" stupid" they themselves were when young or, at least, other young people were). There are plenty of old people in the world who are completely illiterate, also being illiterate or dyslexic doesn't mean someone isn't intelligent. Just as memorizing grammatical rules doesn't necessarily make someone intelligent.
Language is a living thing, even written language, I don't understand why some people get so insecure about it. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Fri, April 24, 2009 - 4:39 PMNo problem Fifi, and as any one reading my post can see — I was dumb not to proofread it. But I was writing off the cuff. Hence, there are times I've skipped words because I've already thought beyond them (not to mention the omission of some punctuation and I'm sure I could have tweaked the grammar).
Anyway, the whole debate reminds me of Mary Theresa Schmich's column for the Chicago Tribune, 'Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young', which later became the lyrics for Everybody's Free (the Sunscreen song):
'Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize [sic] that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders [insert comment about the demise of the English language]'
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Mon, April 27, 2009 - 8:54 AM>>>>>Language is a living thing, even written language, I don't understand why some people get so insecure about it. <<<<<<
I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon with "The Dumbest Generation" and found the arguments persuasive. This is not a "Hey, what's the matter with kids today? / Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?" rant. The author presents a large amount of research in several related areas, perhaps the most surprising of which is that techno-savvy "Millenials" fail to use technology well when doing research in high school and college. (Never mind that nearly half of all students entering college this fall will require remedial classes in reading and writing---that surprises no one: what's shocking is how many reagrd Wikipedia is a *primary* source and think that info on a .com site *selling* a product is as reliable as info on a .edu or .gov site reporting the results of a careful analyisis of it. Over 90% of their Google searches never go beyond the first page. The ability of students to *evaluate* what they find on the web earns low marks from their teachers, who tend to assume that Millenials would excel in this area.)
None of the school districts that have issued laptops to students have found *any* improvement in their academic work. The kids love the technology, but it's not making them smarter. The world is only interesting to them as potential content for their blogs, or as settings for video games. They know very little and this bothers them none. They don't see knowledge as a valuable thing in itself. What is valuable in itself is *them*---their feelings about what happens is what matters most; what actually happens is comparatively insignificant. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Thu, April 30, 2009 - 5:53 PM>>>None of the school districts that have issued laptops to students have found *any* improvement in their academic work. The kids love the technology, but it's not making them smarter.<<<
The statement that there has been no improvement in academic work simply leads me to question the methods of measurement. I am not saying the statement is necessarily false, but there are many different ways to measure intelligence and performance. Each individual may produce better or worse results in different formats.
Personally, I have always excelled with standardized tests, typically above the 98% percentile. I do not feel this makes me smarter than others taking the test. Even if I have had no preparation and little familiarity with the material, I have an inexplicable ability to often make the correct choice from a list of options. On the other hand, I know some who cannot choose from multiples, yet have strong talents for a written essay. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Fri, May 1, 2009 - 8:16 AM>>>>>>>The statement that there has been no improvement in academic work simply leads me to question the methods of measurement. <<<<<<
It's about what you'd expect. A school system sets aside millions of dollars to provide laptops for schoolchilren, then someone looks at how those students did in comparison to schoolchildren in surrounding school systems without laptops. The results disappoint researchers. Some schools discontinue the programs altogether. Others argue that there is a real benefit for lower income students and provide laptops only for them, rather than for all students. (This is aside from the *non-academic* problems with laptops, which you can read about here. educationalissues.suite101.com/ar...out )
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Sat, May 2, 2009 - 12:02 PMThomist, the article you cited still does not explain the testing method. I followed the link and found only a mention of a study in which a number of teachers were selected to utilize one of a list of software programs to teach courses in either reading or mathematics, finding the test scores from classrooms using the software "were not significantly higher" than those who were taught using a more traditional method.
The article does not suggest any correlation between access to computers and the measurable acadamic performance or subject question of how much the student has learned. In fact, there was no connection to possession of laptop computers that was directly studied.
In detail, I can quote the article:
A new federal study gives us a surprising answer. Find out what the results were after a major two-year study using computer software for reading and math.
Federal Study
For two years, the federal government monitored 9,424 students. They were divided into these categories:
1st grade early reading
4th grade reading comprehension
6th grade pre-algebra
9th grade algebra
The Software
The products were chosen from more than 160 products and the companies are well known to those in education.
PLATO Inc.
Carnegie Learning Inc.
Houghton Mifflin Co.
Scholastic Inc.
iLearn
Leapfrog Schoolhouse
Autoskill International Inc.
Pearson PLC
Headsprout Inc.
Random Selection
Teachers volunteered for the study and were either asked to use the products or taught according to their own curriculum guides and tools. 439 teachers participated in 132 schools and 33 districts. Teachers that were selected to use the specified software used them in reading and math. The teachers in the control group taught as they normally would. [Andrew Trotter, Education Week, edweek.org, April 4, 2007]
Results
In the Report to Congress, the National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, the following was stated:
Test scores were not significantly higher in classrooms using the reading and mathematics software products than those in control classrooms.
Although the study collected data on many school and classroom characteristics, only two characteristics were related to the variation in reading achievement. For first grade, effects were larger in schools that had smaller student-teacher ratios. For fourth grade, effects were larger when treatment teachers reported higher levels of use of the study product.
Read more: "Learning and Technology: Do Computers Improve Reading and Math Scores?" - curriculum-issues.suite101.com/ar...T&A
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Fri, April 24, 2009 - 6:13 PMI think there are two issues to consider and I really don't think we can blame television. Okay, well, not completely, although I have caught plenty of grammar gaffes on television. Personally, I do watch television at times and play video games and participate in online discussions such as this, but I still have a voracious appetite for real printed books and read at least two or three books per week. Watching television does not change the value I place on education in general and proper language usage in particular.
On one hand, there is the natural evolution of a living language along the slang that every generation creates for itself. For an example, I would think of the various terms used over the years to describe something as good or interesting. One might say phat or bad or groovy or rad or cool or or gnarly or any number of words, depending on one's age, social set and geographical location. (I was trying to think of something even older, but my mind is getting stuck on the image of Gilligan as the beatnik on Dobie Gillis, but I hope you see my point.) I do not consider this a lack of intelligence or education, but rather a choice of words popular at a particular time or place.
I consider text messages to be another issue. When I need to repeatedly hit the number to get to the letter I want, then, yes, I will use shortened forms, such as CU 2nite. It does bother me when people use such forms in standard e-mail and postings when one has a regular keyboard.
On an interesting side note, when I was studying German, my professor railed about the loss of the capitalized first letter of nouns by his younger family members in e-mails. I believe it is now acceptable to use lower case letters, but if anyone is better informed on current usage, I would love to hear if this is true. As someone studying German as a foreign language, I will say it is easier for me to read when I see the capital letter and know immediately that the word is a noun.
On the other hand, I do sometimes wonder what the schools are teaching. When my nephew was in high school, we took a road trip to Canada. I asked him to check something on the road atlas. I don't remember exactly how the conversation went to state capitals, but he was amazed that I knew them all. Now, I'm not sure if this is a reflection of the education system in general or simply what was retained by one particular student. I'm quite certain that the states and capitals must have been covered at some point. So, I suppose the question should be how many students actually learn and remember important points in various subjects.
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Thu, April 30, 2009 - 2:40 PMI don't necessarily think the generations are getting dumber. I just think they are using language in different ways, for better or for worse.
I think modes of communication change in response to changes in the technology that is used. Spoken language generally uses less formal grammar than written language. Television and radio turn on spoken language (even though much of what is said is scripted beforehand), so they tend to be characterized by looser grammar than print media.
The Associated Press has pushed for short sentences for many years because AP copy is frequently used by radio and television outlets. Twitter posts are supposed to be limited to 140 characters, as I understand, so that enforces even more rigorous brevity on the Tweeter.
The new media are changing the way we communicate -- and understand communication -- in ways that nobody so far begins to understand.
The first newsletters -- forerunners of the modern newspapers (which gave rise to magazines) did not appear for two centuries after the western adoption of the Gutenberg printing press. Remember that the revolutionary Gutenberg Bible still featured handmade illustration that was added by artisans after the basic document had been printed.
It took more than two hundred years for mass publication to create a mass market for literacy, and for typography and print technology to develop that made cheap, disposable publications possible. When the modern press kicked in, however, it transformed medieval society, fostered the Renaissance, the Reformation and Counter Reformation, the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution.
I think we are in the middle of a similar revolutionary change in the way language is used for communication. Right now, however, blogs and webpages still reflect a lot of language usage like that we see in other printed media. But that will change eventually over time.
I think the eventual transformation of communication will be quite radical. But I am not so sure that it will be bad -- or that it will generate a society made up of people who are less capable of using language effectively. My students who Tweet and IM and stay in touch with each other via Facebook use these technologies a lot more effectively than I do, and many of them seem to be quite as interested in precise meaning as people like me whose language skills are still basically rooted in the 20th Century.
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Fri, May 1, 2009 - 8:10 AM>>>>>>I don't necessarily think the generations are getting dumber. I just think they are using language in different ways, for better or for worse. <<<<<<
There's no argument that "Millenials" are using language in different ways, but there is a strong argument that they are a) learning fewer words and b) developing no discipline for sticking with tough-but-worthwhile texts. Many college *graduates* cannot follow the argument of an op-ed in the local paper, an op-ed pitched at an eighth-grade reading level. (Rather, at what was recently seen as an eighth-grade reading level.)
What Flannery O'Connor said forty years ago rings with even greater force now.
"Everywhere I go, I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher." -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Fri, May 1, 2009 - 11:23 AMThomist - I'm not sure what golden generation that you're nostalgic for and using as a yardstick for today's youth. Could you please clarify who the "smartest" generation is and who you're comparing kids today to? Is it your own?
I've continually found the young people I know to be intelligent and quite capable of sticking to the things they're interested in. Intelligent young people continue to be intelligent young people. Young people of average intelligence continue to be average, while the dumbest kids remain the dumbest. This is true of every generation. Just as it's also true that every generation creates its own slang as a means to bond and exclude old people from their discourse. It seems to me that an unwillingness to accept language as something that is alive and constantly evolving due to the creativity of users is a common problem for many older people resistant to change. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Sat, May 2, 2009 - 7:49 AM>>>>>Thomist - I'm not sure what golden generation that you're nostalgic for and using as a yardstick for today's youth. <<<<<<
I surely am part of no golden generation. I don't posit a golden generation, though that is not required in this case. When a larger percentage of the present generation requires remedial classes in reading and writing upon entering college, it's a safe bet that it's because they don't read and write as well as previous generations of entering college students.
>>>>>>It seems to me that an unwillingness to accept language as something that is alive and constantly evolving due to the creativity of users is a common problem for many older people resistant to change. <<<<<<
I know that language changes, though I would point out that part of the purpose of education is to help one converse with *previous* generations. Kids do not need schooling to talk to other kids, but they *do* need schooling if they're going to be conversant with Aristotle, Augustine, Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. Further, they need it if they are going to converse with Thomas Jefferson, Herman Melville, and Henry David Thoreau, not to mention their own grandparents.
Slang is not so simple as you believe. It is not primarily generational, nor is its primary purpose to exclude elders. Military slang, for example, can be shared by a forty-five year-old general and a buck private of eighteen. Jazz musicians in New Orleans (-where I used to live and will soon return) have a century-wide slang. Some stage actors today use idioms Shakespeare used in the late Sixteenth century. There is an in-group / out-group element to slang, but it is not primarily based upon age.
At any rate, the complaint is *not* that Millenials use slang but that they cannot understand an op-ed piece in the local paper written at an eighth-grade reading level. The complaint is that their vocabulary is smaller than that of previous generations of Americans their age. The complaint is that too many of them think "you suck" is a logical argument. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Sat, May 2, 2009 - 9:20 AMThomist - Do you actually spend any time with young people? I do and my experience is that this generation isn't substantially different than previous ones (including my own). What I do find is that some older people - that includes people my age - are stuck on the other side of the technological/digital divide and simply have a very hard time understanding how communication is changing.
Yes, if course slang or specialized hermetic language is used to exclude others in a diverse range of professional and social contexts. This doesn't change the fact that young people use slang to exclude their parents and other oldies. (And enjoy bothering oldies by using slang.) I'd suggest that the vast majority of young people just don't care about the same things you do because they're just not particularly relevant to them (or the world today). The fact that you make sweeping generalizations about "young people" is really rather silly and indicative of a generalized prejudice. Not all old people have a hard time understanding young people, many stay engaged in language and the world, particularly if they care about language, the world and young people. Old people complaining about young people in this way is nothing new and, really, it's rather boring and indicative of a lack of interest in the evolution of language and communication. The reality is that in each generation there is only a small group that are intensely interested in language, literature and philosophy.
I take it you've heard "you suck" from young people quite often? I really don't blame them for feeling that way and dismissing you off-hand if you approach them with the same prejudices you're expressing here. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Sun, May 3, 2009 - 11:31 AM"there is a strong argument that they are a) learning fewer words and b) developing no discipline for sticking with tough-but-worthwhile texts. "
I am less interested in strong arguments than I am in some evidence to support them. Anecdotally, I know many "millenials," as you call them, who have vocabularies as good as mine and much better in many respects. I also know many who read widely, and in challenging works.
If there is some sort of quantitative data that supports the idea that the younger generation is increasingly ignorant and language-challenged, I would be interested in examining it. In the absence of such data, I consider "strong arguments" to be unsubstantiated opinion. And, as we all know, opinions are like a certain part of the human anatomy: everybody has one. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Mon, May 4, 2009 - 8:21 AM>>>>>I am less interested in strong arguments than I am in some evidence to support them. <<<<<
Then you need to read the book, which is thick with research. Your evidence is anecdotal; the author's is not.
For the record, he is *not* arguing that each young person is dumb. He is arguing that this *generation* is dumber than previous ones, and he uses objective measures to back his claim.
>>>>>Anecdotally, I know many "millenials," as you call them, who have vocabularies as good as mine<<<<<<
If you many people less than half your age with a superior vocabulary, you have wasted your adult life.
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Mon, May 4, 2009 - 8:29 AM>>>>>I am less interested in strong arguments than I am in some evidence to support them. <<<<<
Then you need to read the book, which is thick with research. Your evidence is anecdotal; the author's is not.
For the record, he is *not* arguing that each young person is dumb. He is arguing that this *generation* is dumber than previous ones, and he uses objective measures to back his claim.
>>>>>Anecdotally, I know many "millenials," as you call them, who have vocabularies as good as mine<<<<<<
If you many people less than half your age with a superior vocabulary, you have wasted your adult life.
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Mon, May 4, 2009 - 8:13 AM>>>>Thomist - Do you actually spend any time with young people?<<<<
Much more than I'd like, I'm afraid. I don't care for youth. (I didn't care for young people when I was one, for that matter.) But that is not the issue. We're not talking about my experience with youth, or the ease with which youth adopt new technologies. We're arguing about smaller vocabularies, less time devoted to reading, inability to read a newspaper editorial with understanding, and difficulty writing coherent prose, let alone following a serious political argument. The complaints about this come not only from certifiable old fogies but from college professors who wonder why more and more students need remedial classes in reading and writing, from employers who complain that many young employees--including college graduates---not only cannot write a clear memo, they cannot *read* one with understanding.
>>>>> I'd suggest that the vast majority of young people just don't care about the same things you do because they're just not particularly relevant to them (or the world today). <<<<<
I understand that teenagers don't care about the same things adults do. This is the reason teenagers are not to be left in charge of their own education, for its *purpose* is to teach them things *now* that they will only find "relevant" later. (And if they never see the relevance of, say, ancient history, this is to their discredit.) As Flannery O'Connor put it, "Their tastes are not to be consulted; they are to be formed." -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Mon, May 4, 2009 - 8:47 AMThomist - Your prejudices are clear and make discussing this topic with you rather pointless. It's a bit sad that you're berating youth but are so enormously unaware of how your own confirmation bias makes you no better than the youth you berate en masse (irregardless of how your complaints equally apply to many older people and simply don't apply to all young people). I, personally, doubt that *you* are capable of having a serious discussion on this topic due to being blind to how your own bias colours your opinion/perspective that you continue to claim as fact. (It's also very revealing of your intent that you choose "argument" over "discussion" or "debate".) Too bad for you that you're missing out on the richness and vibrancy of language as a creative, living part of culture and expression of the human condition. I'm curious, do you only speak and write one language? Are you American and use only American English? -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Mon, May 4, 2009 - 9:04 AM>>>>>Thomist - Your prejudices are clear and make discussing this topic with you rather pointless.<<<<<<
Perhaps instead you could use your time wisely and read a book about the subject, one informed with research and reflection by an author (-also an English teacher) well versed in the realties of classroom life and the findings of research on how students are doing. But then, since you actually *know* some young people and *like* them, well, what could you possibly have to learn about the subject?
Another book you might find useful is Daniel T. Willingham's "Why Dont' Students Like School?" He's a neuroscientist and relates current research to common questions schoolteachers have. He does not make the claim Bauerlein makes in the "The Dumbest Generation," though he does show that several faddish ideas (---drilling is bad; catering to diverse learning styles is good; emphasizing creativity over learning is good) have been debunked by research.
For the record, I have asked no one to take anything on *my* account. I called attention to a book I found interesting. That you think you can counter its author's thesis by objecting to *me* may provide a hint as to why you feel so at home with 'the dumbest generation.' -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Mon, May 4, 2009 - 10:35 AMThomist - Ah, you make assumptions based upon your limited knowledge as well! And then try to make yourself feel superior by taking on a haughty tone. Fabulous! Well, if nothing else this thread was interesting for Heather and Bill's input. I love this tribe. Stick around, if you're actually interested in discussing language and not just moaning on about how young people suck perhaps you'll enjoy discussing the finer points of language with us. -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Mon, May 4, 2009 - 5:21 PMAt the risk of giving too much life to this thread, I would love to address a very interesting reply.
When I asked what methodology was used to measure the performance of the students who were said not to benefit from computers. The answer I received was, "It's about what you'd expect."
It is a rather striking intellectual argument. The answer is what you think it is. (In case one cannot sense my sarcasm in simple typed words, please know that it is indeed loud and clear in my own mind.)
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Tue, May 5, 2009 - 11:58 AM>>>>When I asked what methodology was used to measure the performance of the students who were said not to benefit from computers. The answer I received was, "It's about what you'd expect."
It is a rather striking intellectual argument.<<<<<<
It wasn't an argument. It was an answer. I also explained what I meant by that: scores of seventh and eigth graders who were given computers were compared with the scores of seventh and eighth graders who were not. Sometimes, of course, it wasn't seventh and eighth graders. Sometimes it was all the freshmen at a college. Those students would be compared with freshmen (at the same college) from the previous few years to see if their scores were better, worse, or the same. The programs were sold as the golden (make that silicon) road to advanced academic achievement, but the results don't show that. Given the cost of the programs, they seem to be a bad investment. (Why pay millions of dollars for no demonstrable academic gain?)
How exactly did *you* expect such programs to be tested? -
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Re: The Dumbest Generation?
Tue, May 5, 2009 - 4:15 PMObviously, you did not read the article that you referred me to in your previous post, or perhaps your comprehension is not as accurate as you might wish to believe.
First, the breakdown of students was as follows:
1st grade early reading
4th grade reading comprehension
6th grade pre-algebra
9th grade algebra
Second, the study did not look at whether the students had laptops or access to computers, but rather asked the instructors to use material from specific software programs to teach the course.
Third, the results showed that the students who were taught using the software "did not score significantly higher" than those who did not. The results did not show that those using the software did worse.
I could go on, but really, what is the point. I think it is fair to say that you have proved your own argument false and, as others have pointed out, made your own prejudice clear.
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