This shocking, surprisingly entertaining romp into the intellectual
nether regions of today's underthirty set reveals the disturbing
and, ultimately, incontrovertible truth: cyberculture is turning us
into a society of know-nothings.
The Dumbest Generation is a dire report on the intellectual life of
young adults and a timely warning of its impact on American
democracy and culture.
For decades, concern has been brewing about the dumbed-down
popular culture available to young people and the impact it has on
their futures. But at the dawn of the digital age, many thought
they saw an answer: the internet, email, blogs, and interactive and
hyper-realistic video games promised to yield a generation of
sharper, more aware, and intellectually sophisticated children. The
terms "information superhighway" and "knowledge economy" entered
the lexicon, and we assumed that teens would use their knowledge
and understanding of technology to set themselves apart as the
vanguards of this new digital era.
That was the promise. But the enlightenment didn't happen. The
technology that was supposed to make young adults more aware,
diversify their tastes, and improve their verbal skills has had the
opposite effect. According to recent reports from the National
Endowment for the Arts, most young people in the United States do
not read literature, visit museums, or vote. They cannot explain
basic scientific methods, recount basic American history, name
their local political representatives, or locate Iraq or Israel on
a map. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young
Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future is a startling examination of
the intellectual life of young adults and a timely warning of its
impact on American culture and democracy.
Over the last few decades, how we view adolescence itself has
changed, growing from a pitstop on the road to adulthood to its own
space in society, wholly separate from adult life. This change in
adolescent culture has gone hand in hand with an insidious
infantilization of our culture at large; as adolescents continue to
disengage from the adult world, they have built their own,
acquiring more spending money, steering classrooms and culture
towards their own needs and interests, and now using the technology
once promoted as the greatest hope for their futures to indulge in
diversions, from MySpace to multiplayer video games, 24/7.
Can a nation continue to enjoy political and economic predominance
if its citizens refuse to grow up? Drawing upon exhaustive
research, personal anecdotes, and historical and social analysis,
The Dumbest Generation presents a portrait of the young American
mind at this critical juncture, and lays out a compelling vision of
how we might address its deficiencies. The Dumbest Generation pulls
no punches as it reveals the true cost of the digital age--and our
last chance to fix it.
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