This is a rant. I’m taking an article that I don’t wish to link to and providing my thoughts and opinions on several sections of the article. The article is a book review on “The Dumbest Generation”. So, for clarification, my rant is actually against the book. For the record, I think the author is an asshole.
My opinions do not reflect that of my employers in any way, shape, or form.
In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!
Excuse me, but it took me more than 4 minutes to read this review, and just about every early adopter I know of would’ve probably skimmed it and they’re all older than me. Who cares about a Facebook status? I’m only on Facebook for networking purposes. If you would’ve mentioned a Twitter update or new blog post, that would’ve been more correct as it pertains to me.
The way Bauerlein sees it, something new and disastrous has happened to America’s youth with the arrival of the instant gratification go-go-go digital age. The result is, essentially, a collective loss of context and history, a neglect of "enduring ideas and conflicts." Survey after painstakingly recounted survey reveals what most of us already suspect: that America’s youth know virtually nothing about history and politics. And no wonder. They have developed a "brazen disregard of books and reading."
You’re absolutely right, I have no clue about history and politics. Both of these subjects are full of lies. However, I know more than enough about my history and my culture’s history. It’s one of the reasons I went to an HBCU (Historically Black College or University). Most of history is screwed up in more ways than you can interpret this article and politics rarely include facts. However, my ignorance of both of these subjects has nothing to do with the fact that I read at least 4 books a month. It has to do with the fact that I choose to ignore them because they’re rarely the full truth. I’d rather live for and learn about the present rather than the past.
Apparently you don’t read either. If you did, you’d know that “and no wonder” is not a sentence loser.
The problem is that instead of using the Web to learn about the wide world, young people instead mostly use it to gossip about each other and follow pop culture, relentlessly keeping up with the ever-shifting lingua franca of being cool in school. The two most popular websites by far among students are Facebook and MySpace. "Social life is a powerful temptation," Bauerlein explains, "and most teenagers feel the pain of missing out."
I use the web to network, learn more about my areas of expertise, and discover new areas and topics to ponder. I also use the web to keep up with the music industry, the education industry, and business connections. I use Facebook for school only so that I can connect with my peers when I have questions about assignments. I use the phone for gossip. It’s way too tedious to do it over the internet using a keyboard. FAIL!
These sites are popular for networking purposes. In fact, these sites are teaching my peers new ways to connect with people. It’s helping us keep in touch with friends that are miles or entire continents away from us. Facebook and Myspace are defining how this generation can use the internet to make a million useful connections on top of gossiping or following pop culture. Didn’t you do the same thing during your childhood, only face to face? I thought so. Now shut up!
This ceaseless pipeline of peer-to-peer activity is worrisome, he argues, not only because it crowds out the more serious stuff but also because it strengthens what he calls the "pull of immaturity." Instead of connecting them with parents, teachers and other adult figures, "[t]he web . . . encourages more horizontal modeling, more raillery and mimicry of people the same age." When Bauerlein tells 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."
Have you ever tried to meet a teacher during their office hours in this day and age? If you haven’t, let me clue you in. IT’S TOUGH AS HELL. Teachers have lives just like we do.
As for American Idol, I don’t know who’s on American Idol let alone what channel it’s on or what time it comes on. I do know who the speaker of the U.S. House is thanks to Twitter and Google. Did I ever learn such knowledge in school? No I didn’t because people like you are helping educational institutes promote the history instead of the present. I think they’re all scandalous people anyway and it’s not like they’re listening to any of us after the elections are over, are they? NO!
Bauerlein also frets about the nature of the Internet itself, where people "seek out what they already hope to find, and they want it fast and free, with a minimum of effort." In entering a world where nobody ever has to stick with anything that bores or challenges them, "going online habituates them to juvenile mental habits."
Here’s another not so big secret for you. My biggest challenge on the web is finding new and interesting concepts, topics, theories, and tools to talk about. When I do find these things, I have to research them to a certain extent. I need to know who the leaders are in the area I’m researching and see what they have to say. Then, I have to formulate my own thoughts and conclusions. There’s nothing fast or easy. In fact, I’m in the most challenging stage of my life and it has absolutely nothing to do with what I learned in school nor what I’ve read in a book.
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 stultifying cocoon of bad spelling, civic illiteracy and endless postings that hopelessly confuse triviality with transcendence. Two-thirds of U.S. undergraduates now score above average on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, up 30% since 1982, he reports.
I have so much work to do that I rarely have time to sit and read a book. This isn’t a generational issue either. How many adults do you know have quality time to themselves let alone enough time to sit down and read a 400 page book. There’s only so many hours in a day! I definitely spend more than 5 minutes reading a book and I go through enough articles in a week to say that I read at least two books a week. Take that Mr. Smarty Pants!
I’m not narcissistic. I know I’m the shit! How do I know this? Check my resume on LinkedIn. Read my posts on ReadWriteWeb. View my conversations on FriendFeed. Check out the pages and the sites that I bookmark. After you’ve done all of this, come back to this website, SheGeeks.net, and look at my conclusions. I’m sure you’ll feel the same way. I’m proud of my accomplishments and abilities. There’s nothing wrong with that and I’m sure my peers feel the same way.
At fault is not just technology but also a newly indulgent attitude among parents, educators and other mentors, who, Bauerlein argues, lack the courage to risk "being labeled a curmudgeon and a reactionary."
I don’t know what schools you’ve been looking at, but my teachers do not give handouts and neither do my parents. My mother does not play that bull**** in her house and neither does my father nor any other elder in my family.
But is he? The natural (and anticipated) response would indeed be to dismiss him as your archetypal cranky old professor who just can’t understand why "kids these days" don’t find Shakespeare as timeless as he always has. Such alarmism ignores the context and history he accuses the youth of lacking — the fact that mass ignorance and apathy have always been widespread in anti-intellectual America, especially among the youth. Maybe something is different this time. But, of course. Something is different every time.
Shakespeare isn’t timeless to me because I don’t connect with his topics nor his logic. Maya Angelou is timeless to me. Malcolm X is timeless to me. Rita Mae Brown, Katherine Forrest, Audre Lorde, W.E.B. Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Terry McMillan, Dorothy West, Jacqueline Carey, Emily Dickenson, Alice Walker, James Baldwin, Nikki Giovanni, Langston Hughes, and a ton more are timeless to me. My generation doesn’t need to be in love with Shakespeare just to be considered “intellectual”.
Conclusion
All in all, I may be an exception in the field of technology, but I’m not an exception overall. My generation isn’t dumb by far. We’re taking over the world, changing the rules, and some people just don’t like it. You know I think those people should do? lol I’ll let you ponder that on your own. Kthnxbye! :P
Popularity: 10% [?]
There’s just not enough money in blogging for college students. This correlates with Meg Robert’s point about college students not having enough time to blog. With so little time to actually put into developing a successful blog, the chances of making money are slim to none and slim left town last year. 
College students love attention and with blogging that’s not going to come immediately nor is it even guaranteed within the first 6 months of blogging. Low pageviews and low stats equates to no love for college students. While those who have been in the business and understand that patience is required, patience is a virtue that not many college students have. 
There are plenty of sides to this coin. However, ask any college student how many of their friends got a job through their blog. My friends would mention me. I wouldn’t mention anyone. Once again, with a lack of time to put into developing a successful blog how can one possibly think to get a job? 
Oh how we love instant gratification. Blogging is a long-term thing. If you’re not going to be in it for the long haul, I’d advise you not to join it at all. We like instant gratifications in order to keep our affections and attention. Without this, blogging is a lost cause for college students. 
While instant gratification is fine, as college students we eventually start to think about the long term benefits of things. Although is stated that blogging is a long-term thing, or at least it should be, there are no guarantees that it will work out after a year or even several years. There are other benefits to blogging long-term that college students are not interested in at this point in time. 
Generation Y are the types of users that can help make new technologies more mainstream. One can even argue that to some extent, we make up the majority of mainstream. We’re the more narcissistic users. We’re the supposedly savvy users of the web. Yet, we’re also the ones who have yet to learn how to properly and effectively user new technologies. We’re the ones that depend on Wikipedia for our homework, yet do not know how to effectively use Google Scholar to our advantage. We have a million resources at our fingertips. We’re the ones that will pick one or two and not bother to explore the others. We just might be the laziest web users of all time. 
Generation Y is normally well informed of the latest gadgets. We switch cellphones every chance we get. We’re switching from PC’s to Linux and Macbooks. We have GPS in our cars and upgrade our stereo systems about as much as we change clothes. However, when it comes to technologies, most of us are at a loss.
It seems the perpetration of Generation Y being up on the latest technologies is a bit skewed. We’re more up on the latest gadgets (hardware). The technologies (software) that power the gadgets that we use, we honestly have no clue about them. While we may also be savvy at using these gadgets, ask any of us to troubleshoot it and that savvy facade will crumble worse than cake. Just because we’re on Facebook and Myspace doesn’t mean why know what the hell we’re doing. 
Don’t ask any of us what these things mean. Don’t tell us that a social network is part of social media which is part of the social web. We most likely don’t even care, but we should! The social web is the wave that we’ll be riding in the future. We know brands like Facebook, Myspace and Bebo. However, we have no clue about Google’s OpenSocial. Hell, I barely have a clue to what exactly it’s supposed to be. We know about Youtube, but not Veoh, Vimeo, or Qik. Twitter? Barely a blip on our radar and I do mean barely! Everything we know about the Social Web, was over for early adopters in 2007, with the exception of Facebook. We can definitely claim that.
Laziness and pride put us behind more than anything else (except possibly games and sleep). If you look at the age of the early adopter crowd you’ll see that people like Scoble, Stowe Boyd, Dave Winer, Guy Kawasaki are not "young bucks". Hell, get off the usual A-list train for a second. Those who are also pushing Friendfeed, Twitter, various RSS Readers, and social aggregators are over the age of 35 too.
There’s way too much hype being placed on Generation Y. Sure we’re savvy, but we’re also clueless and most of us don’t care to do the research. We’re waiting for these things to come to us while early adopters are going to them. We’re weren’t the first on the web, though we pretend to be. Who invented the internet? Puh-leeze! That’s a pop quiz that this generational "wave" would drown in. 
