Is the youth generation today the dumbest ever? First let us look at the statistics. In 2001, 52 percent [of high school seniors] identified Germany, Japan or Italy, not the Soviet Union, as America’s World War II ally (Begey, Interlandi). This is very sad to find out but what does it mean? It is simple most seniors in high school that where spending their time in homeroom to take some national test that they did not have to worry about how they did. Most of the people that I know that toke these assessment test like the PSSA, did not take them seriously. They filled in their name and random bubbles so they could go to sleep. I have seen surveys here where people just fled in bubbles on options that went use to promote an event here at SHIP. Plus he never talks about how well any other age groups of Americans score on the same survey.
Secondly this is all the same story that has been said for hundreds of years. The old have been wringing their hands about the young’s cultural wasteland and ignorance of history at least since admirers of Sophocles and Aeschylus at the end of the Greek civilization ((Begey, Interlandi,).
The Best argument that they can make is that we are lazier in ways then in the past. Take a look at my Mondays I get up at 8:00 AM and I don’t get back to my room until 8 or 9 PM and then I have homework to do. Majority of the students here that I know are managing school work and a job. So how can we be lazy? It is in the way we use the web. That we week out what we already hope to find, and we want it fast and free with minimum effort (Drutman). We like doing a Google search and if we can’t find what we want in the first few pages we start getting frustrated.
They say because we rely on the internet that we don’t know anything, but we are taught that if you can easily look up the information then you don’t need to commit it to memory unless it is your major subject material. We haven’t fight over religious believes or the color of someone skin, or created weapons of mass destruction that can destroy the world three times over. So who is really dumb?
We are not lazy because we use the internet to access information with less time than the previous generations. We are just using the newest technology to help take time away from our busy lives. Like you said most students are busy all day with class and work and extra curricular activities so we need to use the latest technology to ease our schedules.
ReplyDeleteBauerline fails to see that we've evolved as a culture. We've traded some good and some bad, yet he only sees what we've gotten worse at. Like you mentioned, our civil tolerance is one area in particular that we should be rewarded for. There are no more race or religion wars among our generation.
ReplyDeleteOlder generations say that we are lazy because we use the internet instead of looking up information in textbooks. But why would we waste all that time flipping through pages when we can get the same information using a search engine online in a couple seconds. Just because we take a faster way that cuts down on wasted time i guess that makes us lazy. Not!
ReplyDelete"The Best argument that they can make is that we are lazier in ways then in the past" I completely agree! I don't belive we are dumb just more lazy. Also the technology that is available adapt us to become lazy because they are available to us. But some people thunk being lazy is labeling you dumb!
ReplyDeleteI agree that your generation's tolerance for people from every race, gender, orientation, and creed is admirable. This is one instance, though, where the trials and injustices of the past truly shaped you into who you are and how you view and treat one another as human beings. Isn't it important then, to know this history?
ReplyDelete