We Are Not The Dumbest Generation

Ok, so we may all think that we are the smartest people in the world… but truth be told we under the age of 30 are labeled as the dumbest generation by the bestselling author Mark Bauerlein. In his book, The Dumbest Generation, he says we do not know enough to survive in an ‘information-heavy, communication-based society and economy.’ While I believe that there are a number of us who do not know these things, I also believe there are enough of us who do know enough to still keep us running.

If we have a 20% success rate of young Americans then we have enough people to lead our country, but my opinion is that in the next ten years we will not have that percentage of successors. Now statistics show that the United States is 18th in the 36 industrial nations in education (“askville”), but that’s not because we’re lacking intelligence; it’s because other countries are moving faster than us, but sooner or later we’ll make a comeback and be number 1. (We are not the dumbest generation because we have more knowledge about everything technological than the previous generation). We are not the dumbest generation, we are simply the tech gen. (technological generation), because we rely on technology for almost everything.

Most of our lives are online, we text, we, tweet, we i.m. We do so much when it comes to technology, but even I lose focus of the outside world. I have no interest in the news. Almost anybody under 17 will say that (Herbst-Bayliss), but there is another truth: our education as young Americans is of no interest to us (my perspective).

We would rather be sitting at home playing video games and sitting on our asses all day, not having to do anything that doesn’t relate to in our “virtual” reality. Even I do this sometimes; I would rather be at home than at school, because whatever I need to know I can find on Google. If you have never said or heard, “I’ll Google it” or “I’ll look it up,” then you must live in a very small town or even be Amish because everyone in this world has heard and or said this at least once in the last 12 days (my perspective). Now I could sit here and lie to you, saying I’m different than all of them, but I’m not, everyone from this generation is all the same to a point. For-instance, some people might be so consumed in their “virtual” reality that they don’t even think about whether or not they’ll need a job, and then they become homeless (my perspective).

Then there’s me; I may be in to the whole Facebook and Twitter thing but I also can be away from it all and not even care. I could even delete it all and never remember why I got on in the first place. But then there’s another side, I’ll use my little cousin as an example, she is so consumed by her constant texting and instant messaging that the phone bill was astronomical. Does anybody not listen to music? If you don’t you must be deaf, music is a main part of the average humans life.

I bet that when people read this 50%- 95% of them will be listening to music in some way. While writing this I was listening to music almost the entire time. I believe that when listening to music it opens up your mind to think, the only exception is when you are writing music, when writing music you cannot be listening to music because you’re thinking of two different songs; this is so because I’ve tried it…

it doesn’t work. I believe a change is coming, a new beginning, all the technology in this world will become useless and we will be brung back to the simple times of the past, a time when no one new what a call was, back when if you wanted to talk to anyone you had to ride a horse to see them. Not all that has been said in this article is true most of it is but the rest is of what I have seen before or is just what I think is true. But I still believe we are not the dumbest generation, we are just a lazier one. Work Cited: Herbst-Bayliss, Svea. “U.

S. teenagers have little interest in news: study.” N.p., Jul 10, 2007. Web.

29 Mar 2011. ;http://uk.reuters.com/article/2007/07/10/life-usa-news-teenagers-dc-idUKN1036737320070710;. “The United States is currently 18th among the 36 industrialized nations.

.” N.p., n.d. Web.

29 Mar 2011. ;http://askville.Amazon.com/United-States-rank-education-industrialized-nations/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=21721726;.

Bauerlein, Mark. The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30). New York: Penguin Group, 2008. Print.