Equally, our ability to do basic math and our reading proficiency continues to drop. In a 2005 survey cited in the book, respondents aged 15-to-24 only read anything for eight minutes on a weekday and nine minutes on the weekend, while clocking hours and hours watching TV or surfing the Internet. These are just a few shockers that Bauerlein reveals, but not all of his statistical evidence points toward depressing trends.
At the same time, technology is making our IQ's go up, and Bauerlein reveals how IQ tests have become more complex to meet our growing intelligence. In theory, having higher IQ's would go against Bauerlein's original assertion that we are all getting dumber, but Bauerlein quickly dismisses this idea, saying that today's youth aren't reading enough and aren't interested in the arts in the ways previous generations were.
Despite contradictory evidence in other peer reviewed articles - after all, an author's evidence is only what he or she is willing to offer the reader - that shows young Americans are more involved in civil discourse than ever before, Bauerlein sticks to his assertion that intelligence will continue to drop until it eventually threatens democracy as we know it. Of course, Bauerlein ignores the fact that the generation before was just as disinterested in high art (and the traditionalists blamed MTV), and the generation before them also seemed more interested in teen escapism than classical music or Victorian literature (and the traditionalists blamed rock and roll).
Is this really all that shocking? Not really. Bauerlein seems to think things are different because the Internet has only given teens one more way to escape adult life. And to a certain extent, he's right; the Internet is not used by teens to further their intellectual pursuits, at least, not in the way educators would like. But as with all new technologies, the Internet is currently going through a teething stage, and it's too early to say if our new digital lives will mean the next generation will forever ignore civil discourse and become apathetic toward art and history as adults.
Although the digital age has created one of the largest generational rifts in modern history, it is not the only time America has gone through major cultural changes as a result of youth rebellion. As postwar American youths tried to make sense of a difficult time in American history, Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel On The Road became a bestselling novel and rock and roll replaced jazz as the rebellious music of the day. Changes in American culture spiraled out of control in the 1960s, and as this young generation was shipped off to Vietnam after enduring the Cold War fears of nuclear war, a resentment toward authority grew. Despite what the powers-that-be said at the time, this age of American uncertainty created a new surge of art and cultural veracity that not only brought about new labels (Postmodernism, Deconstructivism, et cetera) but a new wave of tolerance and accessibility that continues today.
Article comments
1 - Glen Boyd
Pretty damn scholarly Mr. Eagan. Damn those traditionalists anyway, right?
-Glen
2 - Kevin Eagan
Amen, Glen.
And all of these prescriptive vs. descriptive arguments are starting to do my head in! :)
3 - Ruvy
Kevin, I had to supervise, hire (and often fire) teenage kids who worked at the Burger King where I managed in the 1990's.
Were these kids dumber? No, not by any stretch of the imagination. Intelligence is not necessarily measured by academic ability. But, getting these high schoolers to do basic math, like figuring change (which is only really calculating 100-x) was a major problem. When a high school kid has to use a calculator to figure 9*3, that is a major problem. And I saw that all the time when buying gas and presenting little coupons that shaved three cents off the price of every gallon of gas.
I would suggest that computerization and the internet has changed what is important in terms of academic achievement. Why learn how to calculate change when a pocket calculator (or the store cash register) can do it just as well? Why learn how to do a square root when all you have to do is press a button? Why learn how to use a slipstick when a "scientific calculator" will do all the skull work?
Then, of course, are all those American kids who have no clue where Madagascar is, or all those Israeli kids who have no clue who Golda Meir or David ben-Gurion was....
That's on one side of the equation.
On the other side of the equation are the kids who can hack into any computer system in the world, build a computer as though it were an Erector Set or bunch of Legos, who can do videos and radio podcasts, and who have revolutionized news gathering by getting up in buses and making videos with cell-phones when they see what looks like news.
All this is a double edged sword. On the one side, computerization has cut into much classical academics, but on the other, it has added a dimension that paper and pencil guys like me can barely imagine.
Nevertheless, Kevin, for all of this, writing is still a craft, and it would do all young would-be writers to learn how to spell; to learn what verbs and adverbs are, and to remember that all crafts require practice, practice, and more practice.
There is no computer program that can turn a bad writer into a master wordsmith.
I'll pass on the book. I don't need to pay someone to try to tell me what I know already.
4 - Mark Bauerlein
We disagree, Kevin, but that's an altogether fair and intelligent review.
5 - sour saul
Hey. Two months after your review but, assuming others like myself might stumble upon it ...
What art, sir? I live in Chicago, the new art capital of the country --as opposed to that pigpen of hillbilly poseurs, Brooklyn-- and I am continually shocked by the absolute lack of originality in much of what shamelessly passes for art in your generation, especially at the "fringes" -- everything is pathetically derivative, from music to physical art ... at the moment, e.g. the found/trash/recycled art movement and its cheesy taggin/grafitti compadre go on as if this is something new and revolutionary ... brutally ignorant of how its emptiness was booed off stage twenty years ago on "Family Ties", when then Mallory's frighteningly illiterate "found" artist boyfriend Nick was ushered in to usher that shit out. From Ladytron to the Long Blondes, from the shameless mimicry of those idiots Interpol to the recent crap by the likes of Hot Chip ("ready for the floor?" ... wanna see pathetic lifting, youtube the band Seccession circa 1985). The real sad part, however, is the overall increasing illiteracy many millenials seem to squueze into, with both pain and joy, as they do when squeezin into their skinny pants (why, why in god's name did this trend have to reappear right when we be gettin' obese at alarming rates?). I know this may be a hard concept for many of you, so I'll take it slow ... the situation with your generation regarding art but more importantly reading is profoundly disanalogous (take your time, google it, come back, we cool?) to that of previous generations. There is something painfully wrong when contests to see who can text the most in the shortest time span are publicly applauded. There is less and less language, vocabulary and concepts to flourish with the more brutally illiterate one gets. When Heidegger famously stated that language is the house of being, he could be construed to have kindled many fires beyond the metaphysical ones he was targeting. Language is the house of being but also the tool we express ourselves with. Not just cheezily or narcissistically, but when we are in pain, abused, misunderstood, feel our freedoms frustrated, wish to promote what we value, getting to know what we value, and why we do, etc. In to "Kill a Mockingbird", if one kindda reads it, you know, not as given by Wikipedia or on film, one will notice that a subtle but profound message Harper Lee wishes to impart is that the humanistic armour and motor running Atticus Finch is largely, if not exclusively the product of ... READING (BOO!), and lots of it. It is reading and the EXTENDED concentration (boo, AGAIN) required to read say, a novel, that helps one imaginatively travel and place oneself (whether socially, sexually, tearfully, or philosophically) in a diffirent place, different shoes. The less we read, the more deeply solipsistic we get. But then again, one would have to be dumb as hell to expect that members of this generation would care about themselves enough to establish habits that can help them both appreciate and confront the moral complexity of their daily lives and decision making. Thousands of years ago (ok two, but it's all the same to you guys anyway) Socrates (as recorded or portrayed ... what a fukin' fascinating question ... by Plato) stated that the unexamined life is not worth living. But what happens when even the issues and question generating and generated by this issue are not only unimportant, but unrecognized in the first place? What happens if igrorance-fed defensiveness and a grand ballroom celebration of blidiocy is yanking us further into Plato's cave? Where are you? I can't see you. Shit ... I can't even hear you. Hello?