When was the dumbest generation published

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Must redeem within 90 days. See full terms and conditions and this month's choices. You may also like: Thriller and Mystery Staff Picks. Thank you for signing up, fellow book lover! See More Categories. Stuart G. Walesh, Ph.

ASCE, F. NSPE Email: stu-walesh comcast. Information about my clients and ways I have helped them is at www. Walesh Ph. Do you have a question, suggestion, idea, or other concern? If so, contact me at stu-walesh comcast. Introduction to Creativity and Innovation for Engineers. Now people average more than 3, texts per month. I disallow screens in my classes and make freshmen write papers by hand, preferably in cursive. Between classes, I sit on the quad and count the kids rushing from one building to another as they focus on that tiny screen to see what monumental things have happened during their 90 minutes offline.

I got a lot of that after Dumbest was published. At one debate, a youth researcher pointed to rising test scores for fourth graders and predicted they would blow grumps like me out of the water when they hit high school and college. People applauded. SAT reading scores are at their lowest in 40 years, and writing scores have fallen nearly every year since that section was added in Yes, millennials go to college, but as many as 40 percent end up filling remedial courses.

The workplace data are just as bad. In one survey, more than two-thirds claimed high writing talents, but only half of hiring managers agreed. In another, 66 percent rated themselves strong critical thinkers, but only 26 percent of employers agreed. And despite their boasts of industriousness, students spend less time doing homework than they used to—much less. Digital technology has fabulously empowered them, loosened the hold of elders.

Yet adolescents use these tools to wrap themselves in a generational cocoon filled with puerile banter and coarse images. The founts of knowledge are everywhere, but the rising generation camps in the desert, exchanging stories, pictures, tunes, and texts, savoring the thrill of peer attention. If they don't change, they will be remembered as the fortunate ones who were unworthy of the privileges they inherited. They may even be the generation that lost that great American heritage, forever.

By the way: if you're under 30 AND you've read this far without entirely skimming, i officially revoke your Millennials membership privileges! Dec 21, Lilian rated it it was ok.

A word of warning, I am under 30, so according to the cover, you shouldn't trust me. Two chapters in and I already feel like hurling this book out the window. I felt bombarded with a staggering number of statistics, all basically telling me that my generation is spoiled rotten with entertainment while we cease to retain anything worthwhile for the "adult" world, turning us into ignorant, insolent people.

This book feels like it was not intended to be read by "The Dumbest Generation. It is hard to digest a book that seems to be berating my indulgent habits with every sentence. Admittedly, the first chapter sent me off to Google where the pope lived and the Bill of Rights, if this was supposed to be common knowledge, I am seriously lacking.

Bauerlein's assertions not only sound flawed and exaggerated, but borderline absurd: "They wrinkle their brows if offered a book about Congress, but can't wait for the next version of Halo. He goes on to write " When he talks about the younger generation being bibliophobic, I was frustrated. Apparently he did not plan anyone under thirty I am eighteen to read this. Every time I read his complaints toward the youth for not reading I wanted to say, "Well, you say we aren't reading I also suspect it might be reverse psychology on his part.

To say the author does not understand the youth would be an understatement. To prove the youth's obsession with fashion instead of history will hinder their future, he uses this hypothetical example: "If a student interviews for an internship wearing the hippest garments but can't name a single eighteenth-century artist, the curators will pass.

While fashion might not get you an internship, Wikipedia and Google might. Trust me, I was the girl who crammed the history of the company off the Web I was applying to in high school.

Though despite my complaints, Bauerlein does raise points I agree with such as: 1 the Internet has increased reading material, but the younger generation do not know more than their counterparts in their parent's generation. The idea of not reading or studying the classic masterpieces in art or literature under the assumption it decreases individuality, disgusts me.

I almost wish this was satirical so that this would at least be a hilarious read. Overall, not horrible but I definitely forced myself to finish the book. If not for content, this book makes a great learn-fancy-vocabulary-so-I-can-sound-smart-later-book for I can rarely get through a page without a new word popping up like "pedagogy" which sounds more like a goldfish to me. Fortunately, the conclusion was not as bad as I anticipated, though I admit to borderline elation when I was finished.

Overall, if you are younger than thirty, I reckon you will want to punch Bauerlein in the face. View all 5 comments. Jul 19, Stewart rated it liked it. Mark Bauerlein's premise that the electronic world Internet, Facebook, cellphones, iPads, etc. The big problem I have with the book is that Bauerlein focuses exclusively on the under group, when I think the problem he details can be found in almost all age groups in this country. He points to an "anti-intellectual outlook" in the American youth culture, but I would argue that anti-intellectualism permeates American society from teens to seniors now and throughout our history.

When I am out in public, I see teens and adults in all age groups glued to their cellphones and iPads, oblivious to their immediate surroundings. Ignorance of the important issues of the day and the disengagement of voters from their government can be found at all age levels. Addiction to the Internet is not limited to unders, I think. Reading Bauerlein's book will make almost anyone depressed about the future of this country. Because I think the problem is more pervasive, I am even more pessimistic about the years ahead.

Jun 14, Kate rated it it was amazing. Wonderful read! Puts our generation in its place. There is so much to say about this book, that I am quite going to fail at doing it proper justice. There are plenty of statistics to shock, horrify, and enlighten.

The author does not get completely up on his high horse, but his style is poignant. The observations are astute and the numbers are there to back it all up. Upon finishing the book, one only hopes the predictions laid out in this book about the Millenials do not come to pass. Aug 31, Sara rated it did not like it Shelves: wow-crappy , gave-up , superior-high-horsed-rants. Apr 22, Brenda rated it did not like it.

Bauerlein is a crotchety old republican bragging about is own "intelligence" and ragging on, "those darn kids. Jul 24, Mel rated it did not like it Shelves: library , 21st-century-non-fiction. This is without a doubt the worst book I read all year. It was so poorly written and poorly argued.

I only managed to finish it in the hope that there would be something worth quoting in the last section. The first chapter sets the premise of the book, that teens today don't know anything because of their use of "nu medja" or that they spend all their time on the internet. But the flaw in his argument is that all the tests he quotes; don't show a decline from previous years.

They always show that kids are dumb. It also doesn't explain why America is so far behind other developed countries where kids have access to the same internet technologies. He argues that kids have no knowledge of facts, but I remember being in a US high school in and being horrified by how easy and stupid the classes were. The idea of developing "civic ideas" was to read a story from the local newspaper. There was no analysis, no essay writing, no critical thinking and no perspective beyond the US.

I'm not surprised of these results when the teaching standard was so poor before, and is unlikely to have improved. But despite the fact that kids have all fallen short in these areas before, he now assumes that the adults reading his book are aware of the facts that the kids don't know. This means that at some point, post high school, they acquire these skills.

When is that period and are studies nowadays showing that they've stopped learning then? If things are the same how is numedja to blame? What's the difference between now and when I was growing up and the adults complained we were spending all our time watching TV and talking on the phone? How is it the internet is more evil that TV? Surely the problem arises not from what the kids do in their free time but rather the lack of education they are getting at school?

Another criticism of the author is that he purposefully ignores subculture and class differences. What he is criticising is modern mainstream American values, the emphasis on materialism, popularity and the accumulation of wealth.

These are things that don't go away when people grow up. Rather they're problems all American face. Often teenagers are the ones who fight against these values by identifying with subcultures, and becoming involved in social change. He completely ignores the province of the teenager to rebel and think for themselves.

Chapter 2 looks at how teenagers just don't read anymore. He starts off with a quote by a teenager who says that his dad takes him to the library every week, but his dad doesn't seem to realise that print is dead. In this chapter he shows how in tests reading levels, particularly reading for enjoyment and personal growth, are down for teens compared with previous decades. However, what he totally ignores is that the tests used all focus on traditional print reading.

There is absolutely no acknowledgement of any reading online. None of the questions seem to ask, "How many hours do you spend reading blogs? The problem here is the opposite to the Library and information science world. He fails to acknowledge and incorporate the shift in focus from print to the web. Rather than dismissing all online interaction out of hand, he should look at the new ways information is being used and how it is being developed.

I'm sure there must be research done on the amount of time people spend playing games vs. What about internet activism? Mailing lists? What about ebooks? Image searches? It all comes across as "you kids today with your MySpace and your YouTube, get off my lawn".

The end of chapter 2 criticises the people who've made the argument that I have, that there is a growing e-literacy and e-literacy skills are important for the growing digital age. He asks why if this is the case do the tests not improve? To me the answer is because the tests are still old fashioned, they are not including the new style of learning and information.

That and the education system in America is still failing. And until you improve education, nothing the kids do in their free time is going to improve scores nationwide. Next he focuses on ICT literacy. Arguing that even though kids use the web all the time they are still incompetent at it.

He cites a study which has percent of students not able to do things like find appropriate sources online, rate a website for reliability etc. These types of surveys are designed to show an increased need for technology skills amongst students, not less time spent online and less use of technology in general.

He complains about the amount of computers put in schools, despite the fact that he quotes someone saying how they help African American and Hispanic students. He quotes countless surveys saying they make no difference to scores. Sometimes his arguments are so incoherent and ranting that I loose the thread of how things are supposed to be related. For instance, he starts to talk about language acquisition, and how this is important for kids before 5, but then writes about the low state of language on student blogs.

Is this a culture wide problem or something just unique to teens? Again he makes no statements about how society itself, rather than technology they use, may be shaping the teens lives.

He also writes how boys struggle to achieve courage and girls to achieve poise. He criticises the type of reading people do on the web. He makes the funniest and most ironic comparison here saying that if people are free to cut and paste texts as they like how will they cope with the Iliad, making it something for their own personal use! But rather people picked the chapters they liked best and had those performed at their dinners.

In the next chapter after talking about how teens are not focused and not able to do anything to benefit others without being made to. Ok, perhaps the reason these people are working in service industries is because having a degree no longer opens the jobs that it used to.

Does the author have any idea of the world people actually live in? This chapter seems to be less about technology making youth suck, and just that they suck in general. An artist working in a programme for at risk youth to develop art skills is ridiculed by the author over and over for his distaste at the idea of kids all sitting around copying a Rembrandt, and saying they should find their own voice and style.

People have been valuing the opinions of youth too much while at the same time they feel disenfranchised. I think his argument is that kids are dumb.

How what we are experiencing now is a continuation of problems from the past. Jan 26, Andrea Clarke rated it really liked it. This was a worthy read. Sep 09, Brendan rated it really liked it Shelves: , non-fiction , advice-theory , digital-era. The millennials are told, from the moment they start mixing and Facebooking, that they see things in a different way, they are the digital generation, and that they are great. We can expect to see a major problem maintaining the standards of intelligent debate when this gap exists.

But Bauerlein does the same thing when he romanticizes the intellectual heft of students from the past. I doubt that a huge swath of middle-achievers in the s went to museums for fun instead of playing baseball or hanging out with friends; the mall— not the library— was the Facebook of the s.

But I think people in the digital age acquire a wider range of deep specialties which they can use to connect to other students and people. He underplays the value of these specialties. From that perspective, Bauerlein stands like a man on the beach facing a breaker with his hand out, shouting stop as the wave bears down.

Nov 18, Colin Price rated it really liked it Shelves: non-fiction. My first reaction to this book was a picture of Andy Rooney engaging in yet another curmudeonly rant about some absurd irritant at the end of 60 Minutes. I suspected I would find more Luddite assertions about how the students of yesteryear were so much brighter and more capable than today's youth.

I was wrong. The year of my birth puts me right on the borderline between Gen X and the Millenials, and as a teacher, I work with this generation every day, so I have something of a vested interest in th My first reaction to this book was a picture of Andy Rooney engaging in yet another curmudeonly rant about some absurd irritant at the end of 60 Minutes.

The year of my birth puts me right on the borderline between Gen X and the Millenials, and as a teacher, I work with this generation every day, so I have something of a vested interest in this topic.