All Annotations of 'The Dumbest Generation' by Mark Bauerlein - Los Angeles Times[Preview]

saved by7 people, first byJaved Alam on 2008-07-07, last byGina Maranto on 2008-08-13

• 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.
• 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."
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  • on 2008-08-13 Giggyg
    Where does Bauerlein get his data? You might ask students to do their own research by using something like RescueTime, and having several people they know do so, also, to see just how much time they spend reading online. http://www.rescuetime.com/
    You could also ask them to define reading--when they are looking at Facebook are they reading? Writing?
• 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.

• The Dumbest Generation

  How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and
  Jeopardizes Our Future, or
  Don't Trust Anyone Under 30
  Mark Bauerlein