Ever since NBC political commentator Tom Brokaw published a book several years ago called The Greatest Generation, this term has entered common conversation along with variations. Last year I read a book called The Greater Generation. Its thesis was that the Boomer Generation, that generation of which I am a member that was born in the years after World War 11, was greater than the greatest generation which, in Brokaw's analysis, was the generation that fought and won that world war which defeated Nazi totalitarianism.
Here is this author, an English professor at Emory University, calling the current generation, loosely called the Millenials, those born in 1980 and thereafter, the Dumbest Generation.
His thesis is that this generation does not read books, has little respect for the printed word, and spends its time on the Web, not reading substantive material, but spending their time with email and social networking sites like Facebook.
Furthermore, he goes into detail asserting that Web reading, with its emphasis on short snippets and conciseness, works against detailed and sustained confrontation with Words, as opposed to graphics.
He quotes a research study which talks about how people peruse web sites, how their eyes peruse the site, the point being that the norm is to scan and survey superficially rather give into sustained interaction to words and complete sentences.
The author would say that fewer and fewer people of this age group will spend the time necessary to reading, for example, Faulkner because they cannot devote to a Faulkner the necessary time and concentration.
In short, web browsing and the way people read off the web, militates against reading books.
By "dumbest" the author does not mean unintelligent. He thinks this generation is as intelligent as any past generation. What he means is that this Millenial generation is the least informed---they lack the general knowledge of past generations. Furthermore, this generation does not value knowledge as much as previous generations, or so the author asserts.
They are the least informed because they do not ready books, do not value the printed word, and their web browsing is mainly for social purposes and not to learn new and valuable things.
I do not know if the author is correct in saying that this is the least informed generation. I do think he is correct is saying that web reading is different than sustained print reading, and web or screen reading with the inevitable skimming with the eyes jumping all over the place retards the ability to read long texts like novels.
More later on this book and topic.
1 comment:
I'll give this more thought.
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