The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)
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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. Publishers Weekly From the title forward, Emory University English professor Bauerlein's curmudgeonly screed lets the generalizations run wild. Dismissing the under-30 crowd as "drowning in their own ignorance and aliteracy," Bauerlein repeatedly laments how "teens and 20-year olds love their blogs and games, and they carry the iPod around like a security blanket." Rather than descend into a "maelstrom of youth amusements" (i.e., "rapping comments into a blog"), Bauerlein would have youngsters delve into the great books. (Nip ignorance in the bud, he reasons, because once adulthood sets in, "It's too late to read Dante and Milton.") Bauerlein's considerable research is obvious, but has he ever read a well-edited blog or interviewed an intellectually curious and tech-savvy student? Instead, he writes in a black-and-white myopia that comes close to self-parody; indeed, if it's true that "Twixters 22-to-30-year-olds don't read, tour museums, travel, follow politics, or listen to any music but pop and rap, much less...lay out a personal reading list," one can't help but wonder why Bauerlein, as an educator, doesn't take some responsibility. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Introduction 1Knowledge Deficits 11The New Bibliophobes 39Screen Time 71Online Learning and Non-Learning 113The Betrayal of the Mentors 163No More Culture Warriors 205Bibliography 237Index 255
