QDW #1: Dumbest Generation

Mary Biviens

WIFYS

Dr. Shannon Mortimore- Smith

2/19/2015

The Dumbest Generation

Mark Bauerlien, author of the article ‘The Dumbest Generation’, tends to believe that nowadays we people grow up not attempting to actually seek knowledge. That technology has a way with making us lazy, “tinkering our brains, remapping the neural circuitry, and reprogramming our memory”. It once took us days to find research on a topic and now the internet is designed to help you find material in a matter of minutes. Bauerlein acknowledges that “the much-ballyhooed advantages of this brave new world have not only failed to materialize—they’ve actually made us dumber”.

A media theorist called Marchall McLuhan also agrees that technology has a way of shaping our minds making it harder to comprehend and store information through our own thoughts. The effect that the net has on us is the way they distribute it. Our minds decide to trust the information given to us and we report from that unknowingly. Maryanne Wolf, a developmental psychologists at Tufts University also tells about how, “Our ability to interpret text, to make the rich mental connections that form when we read deeply and without distraction, remains largely disengaged”. In making this comment, Wolf is basically saying that we fell off of trying to gain knowledge because of the use of technology is more compelling and allows us to think less.

In a study from the University College London have observed a research program. Scholars have examined the behavior of visitors using two research sites that provided “access to journal articles, eBooks, and other sources of written information”. They report that the people using the sites have found a development a form of skimming activity. Through the process in which the visitors had to find research they would typically read at least one or two pages of an article or bounce out on to a different without ever going back to the article to actually read it

My overall opinion towards these statements are that we are vulnerable towards the use of technology because they make our lives easier and entertaining. We have forgot about the importance of actually gaining new material by going a further mile to learn something new. With relying on spellcheck we don’t know how to spell. We cut ourselves off from the world not because we found Dan earlier way of going by things. We’ve became lazy but we need to turn that attitude around if we want to remain successful.