In his book, The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein claims that those who constitute the population of individuals under the age of thirty are members of the “dumbest generation”. He even goes to such an extreme as saying, “You guys don’t know anything,” (Bauerlein). However, is this not true? In today’s society, the students in the education system have gone from genuinely attempting to learn subject matter to simply just caring about letter grades and percentages, rather than retaining the knowledge which they are taught. In today’s technologically savvy world, any information one needs, is just a click of a button or the tap of a screen away, allowing one to get by in society as long as they have the basic, fundamental skills needed to
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As technology grows and advances, the general knowledge levels tend to increase as well. Yet, why is it that despite all the breakthroughs and advancements in the technological world today, knowledge levels seem to be regressing rather than progressing? “...knowledge and skills haven’t kept pace and the intellectual habits that compliment them are slipping,” (Source 1). Opportunity to raise general knowledge is ever present yet through the simple ignorance and lackadaisical attitude of today’s young, they have refused to exploit their special circumstances. “Young Americans have much more access and education than their parents did but...the advantages don’t show up in intellectual outcomes,” (Source 1). Through the utter negligence of the young generation to absorb subject matter, there has been a direct relation to the drop-off in intellect. Instead, these same individuals choose to just recapitulate information which seems relevant to the topic without gaining an upper echelon understanding of the …show more content…
Locating and obtaining knowledge that previously could take hours and potentially days of combing through libraries has been shortened to just sitting in front of a screen for a few minutes. “Research the once required days...can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks and I’ve got the fact... I was after,” (Source 4). Time required to find information has been drastically shortened but does this make the young people of today smarter than their elder counterparts? The answer is no, while they have become more efficient at finding information, they have not necessarily become more knowledgeable. There still remains a clear distinction between being able to locate information and genuinely knowing the material. Thanks to a plethora of technology that is readily available to those under the age of thirty, the efficiency in finding information has increased, but not the quality of
As technology grows and advances, the general knowledge levels tend to increase as well. Yet, why is it that despite all the breakthroughs and advancements in the technological world today, knowledge levels seem to be regressing rather than progressing? “...knowledge and skills haven’t kept pace and the intellectual habits that compliment them are slipping,” (Source 1). Opportunity to raise general knowledge is ever present yet through the simple ignorance and lackadaisical attitude of today’s young, they have refused to exploit their special circumstances. “Young Americans have much more access and education than their parents did but...the advantages don’t show up in intellectual outcomes,” (Source 1). Through the utter negligence of the young generation to absorb subject matter, there has been a direct relation to the drop-off in intellect. Instead, these same individuals choose to just recapitulate information which seems relevant to the topic without gaining an upper echelon understanding of the …show more content…
Locating and obtaining knowledge that previously could take hours and potentially days of combing through libraries has been shortened to just sitting in front of a screen for a few minutes. “Research the once required days...can now be done in minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks and I’ve got the fact... I was after,” (Source 4). Time required to find information has been drastically shortened but does this make the young people of today smarter than their elder counterparts? The answer is no, while they have become more efficient at finding information, they have not necessarily become more knowledgeable. There still remains a clear distinction between being able to locate information and genuinely knowing the material. Thanks to a plethora of technology that is readily available to those under the age of thirty, the efficiency in finding information has increased, but not the quality of