According to an article posted by a site called Reuters regarding what source people use for receiving and obtaining information, the internet is definitely the clear winner. After the results from their poll the article states, “The Internet is by far the most popular source of information and the preferred choice for news ahead of television, newspapers and radio, according to a new poll in the United States.” This is just one example of how influential and prominent technology has become in our society. This high importance of technology can also be seen in many other aspects such as cell phones, texting, iPads, notebooks, laptops, and more.
The graph below shows the amount and type of technology uses of ages 8-16 which shows part of the ages of the so called “dumbest generation” and how much they use technology and the numbers are still increasing.
This graph below shows the usage of 18 years and older which is also partly made up of the “dumbest generation” (most of the people my age (18) and our class’s ages are included in this range) and also shows very high usages of technological resources.
These graphs also portray the immense use of technology in society focusing on the amount of consumers and owners.
This graph even emphasizes the usage of one technology while using a different technology which again further emphasizes just how much of a role technology plays in society these days.
With the ever growing use of technology among young generations, there also comes and every growing amount of changes. The way the younger generations communicate and learn is drastically changing with each new device that evolves. In Marc Prensky’s articles “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrant” and “Do They Really Think Differently?” he mentions that there is an actual physiological change in the brains of younger generations or as he calls it, the “Digital-Generation” based on our emergence in digital technology. This change that is due to our exposure and reliance on technology has caused changes in the way we think and process information according to Prensky. This change in turn affects our way of learning and being educated in school. Some argue that it has deteriorated our social skills in verbal communication and social interactions. Critics and believers argue back and forth with whether the new technologies’ are beneficial or detrimental but when it comes down to it, technology has both pros and cons and the issue lies not in deciding on which it is but in deciding on which outweighs the other and at what cost one is willing to go in order to reap the benefits of the new innovations.
Personally I don’t think that we are the dumbest generation. Maybe the correct word would be ignorant or lazy, or maybe we are just misunderstood. I think one of the unfortunate effects of us growing up in the digital era is the fact that it made everything so much more convenient and therefore made us far lazier. For example, when doing a question for a homework assignment, why would one search for minutes in his text book when he can find the answer in seconds on Google? It is just our way of thinking. The new social technologies and way of society has set us for a drive for efficiency and speed. We desire to get the answer the quickest and easiest way and therefore the technologies has made us lazy when it comes to learning and retaining knowledge when we can virtually do all our assignments from the internet and memorize for a test then delete it all to memorize for the next test. Just because we seem lazy and have a need to be efficient does not mean we are literally dumb. Technology has clearly made an extreme change in the way we live and do and the ineffective education system has caused us to be lazy with our studies. I wonder, has Mark Bauerlein ever thought that maybe it’s not us that are dumb but the educators and boards that may be dumb for not attempting to change themselves instead of changing our brains.
As technological and biological researchers have found, one of the biggest changes new technologies has brought was a physiological change in our brains. Our brains have literally transformed due to adapting to the world around us. It can’t be logical then to expect us to learn in the old ways if our brains are not in the old form. The administrators and teachers need to implement new ways of learning that accommodate our different way of processing to allow us to flourish in the way that is helpful to our nature. We are not dumb because the technology has literally made us less smart mentally, we are seen as dumb because the education no longer suits our new ways. Technology has clearly given us the capacity to be smarter than ever before with the amounts of knowledge and resources available at our fingertips. But maybe the definition of smart has changed as well. The truth is, this is how the world is now and there is no way that our brains are going back to the old ways or technology is going back to the old ways so why not adapt our education and hopefully stop people from being misled to think that we are the “dumbest generation.”Sources
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/17/us-media-internet-life-idUSTRE55G4XA20090617
http://www.frankwbaker.com/mediause.htm
http://www.mguhlin.org/2009/12/graphs-writing-and-technology.html
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