By David N. Bass on 1.15.09 @ 6:05AM
It's too late to verify -- don't trust anyone under 30.
The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young
Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone
Under 30)
By Mark Bauerlein
(Tarcher, 272 pages, $24.95)
With his soft voice and unassuming manner, Mark Bauerlein seems
an unlikely prospect for penning an ostentatious book like
The Dumbest Generation. The title immediately brings to
mind the Greatest Generation, the idol of 20th century American
history that weathered the Great Depression, beat the Nazis at
Normandy, and brought us swing music. But the generation that
Bauerlein writes of is very different. Ignorant of politics and
government, art and music, prose and poetry, the Dumbest
Generation is content to turn up its iPods and tune out the
realities of the adult world. It is brash, pampered, young, and
dumb -- and content to stay that way.
Or so argues Bauerlein, an Emory University English professor and
baby boomer. It would be an easy accusation for my generation
(I'm 23) to ignore. After all, the fogies have always railed
against the ignorance and excesses of youth. What's the point of
reading a book or going to a museum in the age of Wikipedia? Why
bother knowing who the Speaker of the House is or voting for
president when the only vote that matters is the hit count on my
latest YouTube video? Being able to locate Mexico on a world map
or name the Axis powers during World War II won't help me score a
date on Friday night or get tapped for the high school football
team.
But something is different this time. In past generations, the
young had fewer opportunities to fritter away their lives.
Two-parent households and a generally religious culture made sure
of it. Today, half of teens grow up in single-parent households
and secularism dominates society. Undergirding that is the
digital culture, the 24/7 rush of information and entertainment
that young adults thrive on. Bauerlein says it's a rush that's
killing their intellectual development.
In mid-November, I attended a lecture at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill where Bauerlein made that argument.
Dressed in a dark gray suit, white shirt, and loosened necktie,
he looked the picture image of the disheveled academic. He paced
back and forth, gesturing mildly as he spoke against the evils of
iPods and "texting."
Out of 30,000 students enrolled UNC-Chapel Hill, about 30
bothered to show up for the talk. (I'm sure the rest were busy on
Facebook.) During the question and answer, several students took
umbrage at the book's premise. "Your title is offensive," said
one. A moment later, the student admitted that he hadn't read the
book. Far from delivering a coup de grâce, he showed
that even when my generation sets out to slay the establishment
giants, we often don't do our homework.
Speaking of homework, teens spend twice as much time in front of
the boob tube as they do completing school assignments, according
to a study Bauerlein refers to in the book. The citation is one
of many he uses to build his case against the encroaching evils
of the digital world. Given the evidence, it's not a hard case to
make. When a higher percentage of students can name the Three
Stooges than the three branches of government, something is
amiss.
Bauerlein points to reading apathy as a major contributing
factor. One study found that 18- to 24-year-olds are the least
active, least avid reading group in the country except for those
75 and older (who probably suffer from age-related ailments that
make reading difficult to begin with). High school and college
students have time to read -- another study found that they
average five and a half hours of leisure time per day -- but they
choose less intellectually stimulating avenues of entertainment.
In fact, the average teen now dedicates the equivalent of a
full-time job to media. "It isn't enough to say that these young
people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut
off from them," Bauerlein writes.
But are the gadgets themselves the culprit? That brings up the
Achilles' heel of Bauerlein's argument. His diagnosis of the
problem -- a generation drowned in a media tsunami -- could not
be timelier. His explanation for its media obsession, however, is
off base. He says technology "conspires against young people in
their intellectual development," as if iPods, laptops, and cell
phones had moral cognition. Yet these entertainment mediums are
just that -- mediums that can be used for either good or evil.
How an individual chooses to use the tool is the moral question,
not the tool itself.
Also missing from Bauerlein's analysis of youthful stupidity is
the bedrock of civilization, the family. That's a staggering
omission considering the body of social science research linking
the demise of the American family with academic decline and
social ills. The closest Bauerlein gets to fingering lack of
parental oversight is his chapter devoted to disappearing
mentors. Even here, though, his focus is on the "custodians of
culture…the teachers, professors, writers, journalists,
intellectuals, editors, librarians, and curators who will not
insist upon the value of knowledge and tradition." Mom and dad
are not mentioned.
For all its shortcomings, The Dumbest Generation still
makes a vital point about young peoples' reliance on media to do
their thinking for them. The 2008 election cycle is the most
recent example. Young voters went for Barack Obama by wide
margins, yet many of them could not justify their vote beyond
Obama's "cool" factor.
That's the most ominous implication of Bauerlein's findings. An
uneducated citizenry is handy for ambitious politicians but
disastrous for the welfare of a republic. At best, the Dumbest
Generation might be remembered as useful idiots. At worst, as
Bauerlein puts it, it could be remembered as the generation that
lost the great American heritage, forever.
topics:
Media Overload
