The dumbing-down of America continues at an astounding pace and an Emory University English professor believes that he knows why it is happening. Mark Bauerlein has written a book that will likely irritate as many people as there will be people who will praise it for its insights, starting with the very title of the book: "The Dumbest Generation - How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future." Labeling any generation "the dumbest generation" is guaranteed to draw the wrath of most of those falling into that age group. Unfortunately for them, Bauerlein builds a strong case that the title of his book is entirely accurate.

But make no mistake. Bauerlein is not calling this generation stupid; he is saying that their ignorance is largely the result of the technology they have grown up with, technology that keeps them tied to their peers practically 24 hours a day, thus ensuring that they can completely insulate themselves from the rest of the world and whatever responsibilities and challenges they might be asked to face. Their worlds are so local and so superficial that they can completely cut off circumstances beyond their immediate circle of friends. If the subject does not involve "friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms (and) Facebook," they are not much interested.

According to Bauerlein, and the numerous studies he cites throughout "The Dumbest Generation," the main culprit in this sad story is the computer, the very tool that was supposed to give this generation an advantage over all that preceded it. But instead of using computers and the internet to their advantage, members of "the dumbest generation" have turned them into little more than combination telephone/television contraptions through which they can seamlessly socialize with their friends and peers.

A related problem is that these young people have grown up in a "disposable society," one in which it is cheaper, easier, and much more fun to replace broken consumer items with new ones than it is to repair the old ones. It has become the norm for Americans to throw out old consumer electronics items and the like because, frankly, it is cheaper to buy new ones than to get the old ones repaired. Unfortunately, in the "cut and paste" society in which these young people live, knowledge has become just as disposable as any consumer electronic product. Students have convinced themselves that there is no point to retaining knowledge on any subject because that information can be found on the internet within seconds when, and if, they need it. So they "cut and paste" the information they need, often from dubious internet sources, and make almost no effort to retain any of it. Why bother, they think, when I know where to find it if I ever need it again?

Bauerlein builds a strong case that the failure of this generation to assimilate the history and culture of the society in which it lives is a dangerous thing, a breakdown that threatens the democratic system under which this country has thrived for more than two centuries. These young people, as a whole, do not read books; they do not study history, foreign affairs, civics, the arts or much else. If it happened before 1990, they are not interested. Bauerlein wonders where the next generation of "strong military leaders and wise political leaders, dedicated journalists and demanding teachers, judges and muckrakers, scholars and critics and artists" will come from and he hopes that his book will finally open the eyes of teachers, parents and reporters in time to save this generation - and our country's future.

Of course there are exceptional members of "the dumbest generation," young people who are as determined to learn and prosper as any who preceded. But they seem to be as much the exception as they are exceptional, and that is scary.

As Bauerlein puts it, "The youth of America occupy a point in history like every other generation did and will, and their time will end. But the effects of their habits will outlast them, and if things do not change they will be remembered as the fortunate ones who were unworthy of the privileges they inherited. They may even be recalled as the generation that lost that great American heritage, forever."

Agree with it or not, this book will make you think. It might irritate you or it might upset you, largely depending on which generation you are a member of, I suspect. Read it with an open mind and decide for yourself.

This book is a compilation of statistical information; it is a good, but slower read due to this. The information, however, is quite an eye-opener. We should take the ideology of this book to heart. This book would be a great reference for college students, education majors, and for parents.

This book is a compilation of statistical information; it is a good, but slower read due to this. The information, however, is quite an eye-opener. We should take the ideology of this book to heart. This book would be a great reference for college students, education majors, and for parents.

As said above, I am part of the generation that Bauerlein calls "the dumbest." I was born in 1984 and had the good luck to be raised by parents who always encouraged intellectual curiosity. I also went to some pretty decent public primary and secondary schools. But many people haven't shared my good fortune.

Some of the reviews here exemplify the kind of mentality that Bauerlein discusses in his book: kids who are apparently convinced that any knowledge that they already have, regardless of how superficial or paltry it might be, is perfectly sufficient; people who are not only ignorant, but are aware of their own ignorance and consider it no obstacle to voicing whatever uninformed opinion bubbles up in their heads, like the guy who said he hadn't read the book and had no intention of doing so.

That they have this attitude is not entirely their fault, since many of them attended schools where climbing out of the ignorance that all of us are born into was considered optional, lack of effort was no bar to moving up through the grades, and academic rigor was thought of as a cruel imposition on their innocent lives of play or perhaps (horrors) "elitist." Their peer environment was little help, as it punished those with a taste for academic work by calling them "nerds" or simply ignoring them.

The "peer environment" theme is probably the strongest point in the book -- that kids are spending more time with each other, reinforcing the idea that the only thing that matters is the immediate, the present, and fun times spent among one's own age group; adults and their works are boring and irrelevant except insofar as they provide cash and new ways of connecting with friends. Of course, this is the same "extended childhood + prolonged adolescence" cluster of ideas that psychologists and sociologists have been toying with for decades, but I think it is worth considering.

Does Bauerlein *conclusively* establish the idea that this generation is "the dumbest?" I don't think so. He presents some statistics, yes, but the data I have read outside of the book looks equivocal to me. What he does establish, I think, is the existence of a steep decline in the reading of books for pleasure, and a decline in the *desire* (if not ability) to think about complex arguments and current events. These trends merit concern. As for the big question -- "What is to be done?" -- given Bauerlein's belief that the "dumbness" is primarily a result of extracurricular lifestyle, not of education practices, it seems logical that he would be pessimistic, and predictably the book ends with foreboding.

Dr. Males, the writer of the best negative review here, says that the book comes across as self-congratulatory, and parts of it certainly do. Members of the brainy class have always been complaining that the coming generations fail to measure up to their standards of intellectual excellence, and that conditions are looking ever-darker for the causes of academia, informed government, civil society...so I naturally look at these kinds of jeremiads with some skepticism, conscious that the complaints are old ones even if the specific circumstances vary. In the early nineteenth century, Thoreau complained that nobody read serious literature or classics anymore. Maybe we just have to accept that the audience for complex literary works has always been and *will always be* small, and that few people in *any era* will take on philosophical meditation or serious political involvement as a habit.

Depending on your view of the merits of different media types, you may think that substituting web-browsing for book-reading is a bad trend, a neutral one, or even a good one. I see it mostly as a bad one, and I say this as a guy who for years spent hours and hours of each day on discussion boards, social networking sites, and YouTube, only to once again make book-reading my main pastime when I concluded that most of my time online had done me more harm than good.

That was just my own experience, of course, and maybe others see things differently. Anyway, life's too short to throw away most of it sitting in front of a screen. I think I'll go read a book. :-)

The premise for the book is fascinating but the methodology was one long tie in of statistics, quotes and sources. I felt like I was reading someone's masters thesis which some may desire, but I was hoping for an insightful AND readable book.

I'm a member of Generation X, and most of the items Dr. Bauerlein blames for the ignorance of Generation Y were not in widespread use when I was a teen. We didn't have the Internet, cell phones, iPods, or sophisticated video game systems, and my town did not even get wired for cable until my freshman year of high school. Yet we did not spend our leisure time in the type of intellectual pursuits that Dr. Bauerlein imagines have been displaced by these modern items. Instead of literature, philosophy, high culture, political activism, or discussing current events we wasted our time on mindless drivel. We hung out at the mall or roller skating rink, gossiped on landlines, watched network soap operas, listened to pop music on the radio or our Walkman, flipped through "Tiger Beat" and other teen magazines, played video games on our Nintendos or Segas, and so on. And I really don't think my parents' generation was all that much different as teens, although the technology was obviously more primitive.

So if teens have been wasting their leisure time on mindless pursuits for decades, why then is Gen Y so ignorant compared to previous generations? Dr. Bauerlein pretty much lets the schools off the hook in "The Dumbest Generation" but I believe that the "dumbing down" of the curriculum is the root cause. Today's teens were raised in the era of the "self esteem" fad, "whole language", "constructivist math" (aka fuzzy math), and all sorts of politically correct multiculturalism nonsense. Little wonder then that so many of them struggle with academic basics.

"The Dumbest Generation" is an interesting book, but the author's arguments in support of his main premise did not strike me as particularly convincing.

As a member of "the Dumbest Generation," I was intrigued by the title and was curious what was being said about people my own age. To be frank, I'm surprised that the editors at Penguin allowed this to be published. The book is full of allegations that lack any real substance, and which are unfortunately most often wrong. The use of statistics from multiple-choice surveys about education is highly questionable. It appears that the author did not bother personally interviewing any members of the generation he's speaking about for the book, or if he did, those interviews did not make their way into the text.

Rarely have I found a piece of writing so ignorant, so incorrect, and so offensive. I feel strongly enough about it that in the future, I may write more about the flaws in this book on The Huffington Post. In the meantime, skip this book and buy another.

In the hands of teens, the computer is clearly not the learning tool phenomena that had adults so enthralled. Just because information is at their fingertips doesn't mean they are using it. For teens the computer is a cross between television and a telephone used mainly to select teen appeal content and chatter endlessly with friends. Surprise surprise, the computer age just made it that much easier for them to insulate themselves from the adult world. But are these skills transferable or worthwhile?

Mark Bauerlein goes to great pains to list and explain the validity of his research and data to prove that despite so many writers raving about the digital generation being smarter in more innovative, search savvy ways than before, comments from college professors, employee recruiters and national stats indicate that young people are sorely lacking in basic intellectual skills.

Bauerlein seeks out hard evidence provided by a website marketing firm tracking eye movement, of subjects wired to computers, and recording their comments as they interacted with websites. Their findings? People don't read at the screen, they skim and look for what turns them on. They want websites to look the same so they can interact with a familiar interface and they resist long blocks of text. Computers are actually helping people to dumb down and not excercise intellectual skills at all. We suspected as much which is possibly why this book has an audience.

The rest of the book is not about the digital age, but about youth culture since it became the phenomena extraordinaire of the 60's and turned this nation into the youth worshipping culture that it is. Those who should be mentoring students by raising the bar, he contends, have bought into the youth phenomena and now promote adolescent insularity, unhampered by the burden of tradition especially in liberal arts. This was actually quite a helpful perspective because it helped me realize that American Youth Culture is an aberration of history further fueled by consumerism which benefits from an impulsive materialistic adolescent mindset. Bauerlein, however, does not provide such insight.

Rather he covers all the usual arguments about why a democracy needs knowledgeable civic minded citizens and that just isn't happening anymore. None of these arguments are convincing largely because he blames the participants and doesn't mention the mind-binding sameness of a materialistic world egged on by corporate controlled capitalism. His description of young people today describes my own anti-civic, anti-intellectual, self-involved youth 25 years ago thus reviewers have panned him for so broadly criticizing any generation still in these formative years and this is perhaps the biggest flaw of his book.

This English professor author is simply arguing for the old culture of intellectual rigor as it was prescribed in his day when books were king and intellectuals had longer arguments. And I agree a book has a lot more scope to grasp the big picture. Ironically he has failed to grasp one that doesn't sound worn and tired out which is too bad because the digital age clearly needs perspective just as the Internet needs more depth.

He does mention, as a good sign, that young people are a lot better behaved than their sexually wild, drug using predecessors were. This only makes me wonder if the digital age is creating a more conservative, easily controlled populace, but Bauerlein offers no correlations here.

Except for one mention of teens missing out on a soldering iron, he does not mention the core of this whole argument which is that teens are not getting outdoors or experiencing hands-on skills that would allow them greater self-sufficiency. They don't negotiate or manage for themselves their own free time because now it's all so much protective play dating thus they lack initiative in the workplace and managing skills for facilitating team work. Outdoor activity and skills of self-sufficiency were eroding in their parents' time in favor of grooming worker bees for the digi-mines which might well be the logical progression of the book reading intellectual activity he espouses.

Amanda Kovattana is author of Diamonds In My Pocket: Tales of a Childhood In Asia

As a 26 year old IT guy, I suppose I'm in the "target demographic" of untrustworthy people. I work full time, am successful and have the capacity to talk intellectually. Yes, I do play video games, use the internet, and guess what else? I can find Iraq on the map, have discussions about important books, films, and philosophy.

This is ageism - it does exist, and it is harmful to our society. Try writing a book on not trusting "old people" and see how far it goes.

I'm offended that such a book exists. Generalizations about any group of people can be dangerous.

First off, I have not read the book. I will not read the book. I will discourage everyone to not read the book. All it is a collection of fearmongering "good ole' days" propaganda from a Luddite who can't keep up with the shifting culture of information consumption and new ways to learn both new and old lessons. Like the majority of people who find change scary, he demonizes that which he willingly makes no effort to understand, and uses platitudinous anecdotes with no real bearing on reality and manipulated statistics to make far-reaching claims about how dumb my generation (yes, my) generation is, and makes the logical face plant jump about trustworthiness.

I find even the title and the implication that my digital "lifestyle" as it were has done anything other than enhance me as an informed, educated, individual. There are plenty of better written, more balanced arguments exploring both the pros and the cons of the current state of information culture. Do yourself a favor and do your own research, and find your own conclusions that aren't based on fear and anxiety.

And if the children can't make it, the elder generation has to be responsible. This sort of smug bashing is not helping anyone.

I have been reading this book, and am so far impressed by two apparent facts.

First, the title is a lie. All the author proves is that the kids are as dumb as us. How exciting.

And then, second, will this book do any good? I doubt it. As Ortega y Gasset noted, almost a century ago: "The commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will."

But of course -- everybody is equal!!! (And if they aren't, they can always find somebody else to blame......)

[Fred Allen, radio/TV comedian of the 50s, once "predicted" that the then mass of new TV-watchers would eventually have "brains the size of peas and eyeballs the size of cantelopes" if they didn't get the excesses of the"vast wasteland" (words of then FCC Chairman, Newton Minnow) -watching under control. Well...] Seems we just may have reached the point Allen had in mind, our having fostered a generation who's life is routinely about being glued to all kinds of electronic screens...not to mention getting musically iWired, making big money, looking good and having fun

Nevermind brain-power enhancement. For youngsters, gaining knowledge, writing, shaping values, and just plain reading are not the "cool" things to do these days.

--Or so author and university English professor Mark Bauerlein claims. Risking minor wrath of 12-to-29-year-olds by describing their lifestyles as mind-dulling and narrow, he describes a youthful way of life that's devoid of the curiosities of even everyday learning. --But lest the reader be fooled that this is a book repleat with armchair opinion, here's one bold, serious effort that takes on a generation in need of a mind-set overhaul, a generation unashamed of its open apathy toward reading and learning --and what it means for all of us. The book makes its point relying on a myriad of convincing references, results, and conclusions from studies, surveys by reputable academic think tanks, associations, ed boards, conferences and committees.

In fact, sometimes the read gets a little dry with all the numbers, percentages, comparisons, charts, quotes and definitions offered. Indeed, The Dumbest Generation [the book, that is] is not a loose work designed to lampoon a vulnerable, younger people. Quite the opposite, it's an up-close examination of the relationship between lack of learning and disdain for reading...and a resulting dismal future for our democracy. At first, this sounds like a stretch, but Bauerlein is a credible voice and does a good job showing we've got a problem on our hands: a generation of very capable youth...that openly rejects the past, rejects authority and mentors, rejects schoolwork...only to fill the void with over-abundant screen-watching, never-ending peer contact, time-consuming jobs, and dreaming about/planning for hefty future incomes.

We find out our "kids" know little about math, tradition, history, philpsophy, art, current events, science, the world around them...and, says Bauerline, we're going to pay for it. He claims the low levels of general knowledge comes from too much time spent in self-serving, ego- boosting activities...like texting & iPoding & watching TV, web surfing, playing video games, and more. The author claims "Generation D," shall we say, reads little, spells poorly and writes even worse....and doesn't much care about the difficiencies.

He takes no cheap shots. Bauerlein drills into nobody and affixes little blame but does make a sound case, outlining how too much Internet and too little reading have lead to poor general knowledge, which ultimately results in the demise of a democracy. [Appropriately, he includes a good reference to Jefferson and his comments about "a literate electorate...."]Our author puts his research of "how it is" out for all of us to think about...as he concludes that declining values, a reduced quality of life and crumbling political process are in store.

Unfortunately, the book falls short in making no clear connection between youth's passion for electronic gear and fun-time...and the the multinational corporations' infatuation with youth's cash. That marketeers expect billion$ and billion$ from this group annually is no small point, and "getting smarter" almost Requires the rejection of (at least some of) the hip, modern, "cool" electronic toys the 12-to-29ers infectiously require. ["I couldn't live without my cell phone," laments one of The Generation's respondents in the book.] We get only passing notes on the enormous pressures put on them to buy. Bauerline might
have shown some cause and effect. Why not here and now address the relationship between pandering companies and low achievement? As there's, apparently, no money in getting smarter these days, Bauerline passes up a perfectly good opportunity to briefly clarify...even though up front he tells us that the scope of this book is limited and would not include
such examinations.

So, the Internet's the culprit in all this window-watching the young generation's "into"? --Hard to disagree, especially when we see so much of youth culture forever plugged-in, on-line, and checked-out. An important, laudable work...yet the author is apt to make some mad --like middle school and university teachers who, he claims, have lost the responsibility for teaching kids to learn How To Learn --like some members of "Generation D" who (unfortunately) may criticize this laudable work as an personal affront instead of a blueprint for change. [--But, then again, they'd had to have Read The Book first....] Given that the intellibots of the "dumbest generation" are, in fact, great at mastering Web offerings, Blackberry and cell phone manipulation, and 40-level video-game challenges, 50s funnyman Fred Allen probably should have included: "...and thumbs the girth of tree stumps."

Every older generation laments the younger one. This is nothing new. But what is new is the smug superiority of baby boomers (easily the *worst* generation) towards today's youth. They do this through quantification of "facts" that probably have not changed since their youth. I have not seen any evidence that the percent of youth who lack the ability to locate Iraq (or Persia) on a map has changed since 1960.

Millenials and Gen-Yers have a lot of positive qualities. And give them a break. They have a big mess to clean up from the gross political, social, and economic incompetence of the baby boomers. After all, the boomers are a whole generation of political and social leaders who:

*Are mortgaging their *own* grandchildren's future through crippling national debt.
*Leading state pension systems towards bankruptcy, meaning increased benefits for them, but longer working years and higher taxes for their *own* children to fund their retirements at age 55.
*Little in the way of sustainable environmental practices (they elected an oil president who still questions the legitimacy of global warming).
*Embracing conservative tax policies and reductions in funding for education....despite the fact that they are the beneficiaries of an era when *their* parents and grandparents were generous to and supported education.
*Engaging in a useless and economically draining war with the end result only being more money for Halliburton and the oil companies with resources devoted away from maintaining our own infrastructure, leaving *their* own children with the costs.

So, boomers, complain all you want about the number of hours a youngster plays video games (even though it is the corporate titan of your generation who sells it to them) and lament that this generation is worse (when they are actually probably no different from you).

But I would remind you to take some responsibility and realize that your role is not to complain (one thing, as this book demonstrates, the boomers are very good at) and "weep for the future," but to lead and guide our younger generation, not berate and belittle them. Because as the above points make clear, your leadership has been questionable at best. You may weep for the future, but the younger generation cannot wait until you get out of the way and realize the promises from your youth that went unfulfilled.

I was hoping for more constructive criticism rather than just shoving various facts down my throat. While the book does contain thought provoking data, the lack of suggestions on how to improve the situation make the book mediocre at best.

This professor whining about how our generation is dumb because we lack knowledge of certain things he considers essential; is he mistaking knowledge for intelligence? A person can have buckets of knowledge but if they can't apply it by thinking critically, independently or in an abstract fashion, they wouldn't be very intelligent. Likewise, one could have superior thinking ability but be comparatively ignorant.

The true title should be: The Most Apathetic Generation.
The reason we don't know is simply because we don't care.
We don't care to know where Iraq is...it doesn't apply to our daily lives, we don't care who are VP is, and etc.

It's my understanding that the baby boomers are the ones who messed us up. Housing market in depression, the stock market going haywire, the value of the dollar has decreased. Has this happened under the watchful eye of the under 30's? No! It's the baby boomers that have been in control and they are the ones who messed everything up! With their lack of foresight, their ignorance and with their selfish instant gratification needs.
We are not the generation that got us stuck in Iraq or Vietnam, or that screwed up the economy.
I mean we are as dumb as any other generation, but if you're going to criticize us... the things that you value, your politicians and your system...why don't we care about that system? Because we are not a part of that system.

There's more to say about this, but that's all for now.

Hey guys, I jsut checked out this book called The Dumbest Generation (refering to my own one generations). To be ohnest, teh autheor kinda sounds like an old geezer in the book, because he uses all these big words no one uses anymore (lexicon? he probaby just made that one up LOL!!) and he's also like really agnry about some random stuff like books or something, I don't really know, I didn't really undersatnd most of it. Anywho, I just wanted to say that this guy is totally wrong about most stuff, because look at me!! I'm smrrt, my IQ was determined to be 1600/1600 ACT SCORE and I'm from these generations under 30! Heck, I don't even read books that made me like that, Im just naturally smart LOL!!! Seriusly, books are for like old ppl, anyone who needs something can just find out it on internet anyway, i mean DUH!!!!!! XD! Take that, Mr Old Guy!!

"The Dumbest Generation" by Mark Bauerlein is an unabashed and curmudgeonly critique of the poor intellectual habits of America's youth. A Professor of English at Emory University, Mr. Bauerlein takes aim at his many peers in the education establishment who have far too often pandered to students by promoting self-esteemism, arguing that what students need most is a reality check about their capabilities and shortcomings if they are to properly prepare themselves for success and self-fulfillment later in life. While this courageous book is destined to generate a great deal of controversary, it should also stimulate much-needed discussion about what might be done to ensure that America's intellectual legacy does not end but somehow carries on into the future.

Mr. Bauerlein provides ample evidence to support his thesis that the vast majority of today's youths are being dumbed-down by their immersion into a technologically-mediated frenzy of puerile peer group interactivity. Mr. Bauerlein believes that the seductiveness of pop culture and the allure of screen imagery serves to distract and impede study, demonstrating that student proficiencies in critical disciplines such as civics, math, science and engineering have descended to abysmal levels. The author contends that ignorance across a range of subjects has stifled critical thinking skills and threatens to shut down the pipeline of young intellectuals who may be capable of the kind of thoughtful discourse that is required to maintain a healthy democracy.

A great merit of the book is Mr. Bauerlein's debunking of the purported benefits of technology in enhancing the student learning experience. Mr. Bauerlein persuasively argues that mastery using gadgets such as cell phones, MP3 players, video games, Web browsers and the like may have some limited benefit pertaining to careerism but certainly not for the acquisition of knowledge. Revealing the failures of expensive technology initiatives to improve test scores, Mr. Bauerlein suggests that the majority of youths who navigate only within a narrowly-circumscribed universe of narcissistic social networking sites have only succeeded in isolating themselves from the cultural inheritance bequeathed to them by prior generations; precipitous declines in leisure reading, museum outings and other behavioral indicators lends credence to the author's concerns.

As we struggle to understand some of the reasons why our unprecedented access to information has thus far failed to lead us closer to enlightenment, we would do well to read Mr. Bauerlein's timely book.

"The Dumbest Generation" by Mark Bauerlein is an unabashed and curmudgeonly critique of the poor intellectual habits of America's youth. A Professor of English at Emory University, Mr. Bauerlein takes aim at the apologists of the education establishment for their pandering of students and promotion of self-esteemism, arguing that what students need most is a reality check about their insufficiencies if they are to properly prepare themselves for success and self-fulfillment later in life. While this courageous book is destined to generate a great deal of controversary, it should also stimulate much-needed discussion about what might be done to ensure that America's intellectual legacy carries on into the future.

Mr. Bauerlein provides ample evidence to support his thesis that the vast majority of today's youths are being dumbed-down by their immersion into a technologically-mediated frenzy of puerile peer group interactivity. Mr. Bauerlein believes that the seductiveness of pop culture and the allure of screen imagery serves to impede study, demonstrating that student proficiency in critical disciplines such as civics, math, science and engineering have descended to abysmal levels. Unfortunately, ignorance across a range of subjects impedes critical thinking and threatens the pipeline of young intellectuals who may be capable of the kind of thoughtful discourse that is required to maintain a healthy democracy.

A great merit of the book is Mr. Bauerlein's debunking of the purported benefits of technology in enhancing the student learning experience. Mr. Bauerlein persuasively argues that mastery using gadgets such as cell phones, MP3 players, video games, Web browsers and the like may have some limited benefit pertaining to careerism but certainly not for the acquisition of knowledge. Revealing the failures of expensive technology initiatives to improve test scores and the fact that most Web content is written to maximize sales opportunities (and not intellectual thought), Mr. Bauerlein suggests that the majority of youths who navigate only within a narrowly-circumscribed universe of narcissistic social networking sites are isolating themselves from the culture inheritance bequeathed to them by prior generations; precipitous declines in leisure reading, museum outings and other behavioral indicators lends credence to the author's concerns.

As we struggle to understand some of the reasons why our unprecedented access to information has thus far failed to lead us closer to enlightenment, we would do well to read Mr. Bauerlein's timely and thoroughly readable book.

To all those over 50--you already know it's true. The younger people around you no longer read. Not just newspapers. Anything. The fallacious argument put forth by the technocrats in the last two decades that computers in classrooms, the Internet, Ipods, etc. would result in an explosion of intellectual growth, are here exposed for the bankrupt falsehoods they always were.

If computers in classrooms really improved student performance why are test scores lower than during the Eisenhower Administration? Why are teenagers unaware of the most basic socio-political and historical facts, and yet bursting at the seams with pop culture, and the pocket money to indulge it?

Why are teenagers, (and truth be told most of society today) unable to lose themselves in a biography of Maria Theresa, JFK, Winston Churchill, or Vince Lombardi, the prose of Walter De La Mare, Ray Bradbury or Joan Aiken, a scholarly study of the American Film Industry or American ballet, or an overview of baseball?

Why do their attention spans not exceed the duration of a rock and roll number on MTV?

Yes, the idiot box, (or plug in drug) is part of the answer, and the ensuing decline TV ushered in has long been tracked, (recall Newton Minnow's comments here). But the arrival of the new technologies of the 90's and since have hastened the decline exponentially.

Anyone who has ever witnessed a 60 year old secretary successfully convert to computerized word processing after having used manual machines or Selectrics for 40 years, knows that end user computer aptitudes are easily acquired, and need not be the main emphasis of classroom instruction.

Furthermore, Internet research in no way supplants the need for hard texts, and the deep study and uninterrupted reading required to develop not only a mastery of, but love of a subject. Can someone get the social background of Ludwig Tieck off the Internet? The collected columns of Walter Lippmann or Westbrook Pegler? The memoirs of Dean Acheson?

No, one can get referrals--leads, and that's all well and good--but it cannot stop there. Libraries themselves have contributed to the problem by allowing themselves to be turned into video arcades. Sorry library directors, DVD circulation does not supplant serious reading! Circulation of serious books is way down.

In any case, today's youngsters already use the computers in their private life to the ninth degree, and will assuredly continue to master the necessary skills needed for their operation in both their future professional and personal lives.

Will they however be able to draw upon the endless riches of a deep liberal arts education however? The early returns are not encouraging.

How will their "My Facebook", text messaging, "cut and paste" skills (and one might add cut and paste speaking style) serve them in an depth discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, "Faust", Mahler's symphonies or the films of Val Lewton? Somehow, one cannot see them holding their own in a Proustian salon.

Yes, there is relationship between technology and culture and it is a destructive one.

Professor Bauerlein has done an admirable job here. Read it in order to take action with those you love while there's still time. Purchase the book for your friends. I certainly am.

Professor Mark Bauerlein's THE DUMBEST GENERATION is easily readable piece of tocsin scholarship.It will be welcomed or denounced precisely according to one's interest-in/love of,or indifference-to/hatred of READING.[P.12~ Q: Where does the Pope reside? A:England; Q: Where in England? A:Paris; Q:How many Stars on the Flag? A:52.. Obama thinks 57!]Jay Leno jokes might be sufficient to case-close the book there. But TDG delivers like Thunderball apocalyptic facts and statistical surveys re ignorance of Millennials [A NATION At RISK 4/1983;reprise STILL at RISK 4/2008: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research].
Inescapable conclusion: America's children are dangerously limited in common knowledge;and basic skills & civic-moral attitudes founded upon this KNOWLEDGE.

Our kiddoes are stellar adepts in i-Phones/video games/e-mail useage/text messaging & cheating on school work(lifting info w/w for term paper assignments;or stealing exams & imaging them about the "school" for the perusal of class mate homies). They are equally adept at new(un)LEARNING MODALITY~The DIGITAL(stupor). The latter Deconstructs classic visual/audeo/kinesthetic learning modes and replaces/rewires essentially linear-cognitive processes, replacing them with non-linear a-logical"emotives". This is particularly destructive to READING which demands intense LOGICAL focus and interactive judgment/evaluation of text/words against a person's Language Categories/Logos to verify a verbal information base[books;maps;instructions/directions]as valid and
dependable;"worthy" or...to the point~ dismissible as WRONG.

Linguist Frank Smith renowned work UNDERSTANDING READING ~A Psycholinquistic Analysis of Reading and Learning to Read repeatedly documents the key dimension of reading as KNOWLEDGE PROCESSING. His work begins...and concludes...with apparently tautological Commandment:
"Children learn to read by Reading". The Problem is...according to Professor Bauerlein and 27-year teachers like myself: Today's children don't...therefore CAN'T...read. A more disturbing conclusion is they can't THINK~lacking both linear cognitive processing faculties and the Language(knowledge)Categories necessary for analysis and judgment of (potential)information~ even Truth.

Hence~ AMERICAN IDOL;CHAT-ROOM;YOU-TUBE SURFING & NARCISSISTIC MIRROR/MIRROR/on the WALL websites dominate psyches and psychologies of today's young people(and their Yuppster parents).Soon-to-be-defunct New York Times has finally arrived to declaim on this crisis(LITERARY DEBATE: "Online,R U Really Reading?" 7/27/2008). Somehow exalted NYT will find a way to blame President Bush. The ironies of the article are too manifest to argue. (Other than in a short time former "All the News that's Fit to Print" Grey Lady may not exist to be churlish with non-
existent readers.)

Title THE DUMBEST GENERATION may,indeed,offend potential readers. But, IMO,the line between offending and PROVOKING still-capable readers into self-awareness and debate has not been crossed. The DIGITAL WORLD is essentially about entertainment(at best)and mind-destroying DISTRACTION at worst. Bauerlein's book is about Reality~some very dangerous truth. T.S.Eliot prophetically asserted "the average man can bear only a little truth;..while spending much of his life being distracted from distraction by DISTRACTION." In PM reality it may be too late to do anything about this. Our schools are locked in nonsense(cf~Frank Smith INSULT to INTELLIGENCE) Testing Agendas that abet and contribute to the fecklessness and inability to read that is crippling most students.Yet as long as there is healthy FEAR of what is occurring(cf:chapter 5~"The Betrayal of the Mentors"; or Victor Davis Hanson's seminal WHO KILLED HOMER?),there is hope. To recall the voice that summoned St.Augustine to action: TAKE and READ...while you still can(451 Ray Bradbury warning stars)!

Mark Bauerlein's The Dumbest Generation joins the rank of books which invite us--compel us--to do some serious thinking about the future of democracy. If meaningful participation in the civic and political process is based on a certain degree of cultural literacy, and if the literacy of the up and coming "millennial" generation is declining, the future is foreboding.

At times Bauerlein comes across as slightly curmudgeonly, particularly in his insistence (in Chapter 5) that the mentors of the 60s generation allowed it to hijack the college curriculum and contribute to the overall decline of American literacy. But he also makes some very good points along the way.

In his first chapter, he documents the astounding and frightening across-the-board decline of achievement scores for 17-24 year-olds. Chapters 2,3,4, and 5 try to explain the decline: abysmally low levels of reading; increased immersion in digital technology, both in and out of school, that may enhance information retrieval skills but is destroying information appraisal ones, as well as siphoning off public school monies from the arts and even sciences; and poor mentoring that fails to encourage students to explore their cultural traditions, but instead uncritically hops on the technological bandwagon.

In his final chapter, Bauerlein quite interestingly argues that culture wars are good, because they keep all participants on their toes and the ensuing dialogue, heated as it sometimes can get, generates insight. But in an age in which we've lost touch with both knowledge and tradition, the lively dialogue of past culture wars becomes impossible, and single-lined dogmatism and intolerance easily replace them.

The case that Bauerlein makes for the dumbing down of the millennial generation is compelling and frightening. It becomes even more so when one stops to realize, as Rick Shenkman demonstrates in his recent Just How Stupid Are We? (2008), that a sizeable percentage of over-millennials are pretty illiterate too when it comes to the simplest civic, political, historical, and economic knowledge (forget about science and math).

John Stuart Mill clearly foresaw the danger to democracy of an electorate increasingly out of touch with the information it needs to make informed, reflective decisions. Obviously knowledge isn't a cure-all. Well-educated people can make quite foolish and even wicked decisions (which is just to say that the moral will needs to be cultivated along with the mind). But it can hardly be denied that a familiarity with basic public policy issues is a mimimal necessary condition for responsible citizenship. If Bauerlein and others are correct about falling literacy rates in this country, the Millian chickens will soon come home to roost.

Everything from Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" interviews to a host of national surveys and tests demonstrates that today's 15 - 29 year-olds have an atrocious lack of at-hand knowledge about math, science, history, geography, civics, and nearly anything else that traditionally qualified as education or middle-to-highbrow culture. In author Mark Bauerlein's estimation, these results qualify the current group of teenagers and young adults for the title "the dumbest generation." By choosing such an obviously disparaging appellation and adopting it as his book's inciting, marketing-driven title (along with the subtitle, "How the Digital Age Stupifies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future"), Mr. Bauerlein makes clear without opening the front cover where he stands.

The entire thesis of THE DUMBEST GENERATION can be summarized in a syllogism:

1. Reading is the main source of knowledge and intelligence.
2. Televisions and computers (e.g., the Internet) have significantly reduced young people's time and interest in reading more than ever before.
3. Therefore, young people have less knowledge and intelligence than previous generations and are hence "the dumbest generation."

Bauerlein's thesis is further buttressed by the argument that young people's lost knowledge is not being replaced, not even by useful technology skills despite the many hours spent online at the computer keyboard. He sees instead a generation increasingly absorbed in a socializing, narcissistic, content-empty, pop culture-oriented, style- and peer-driven world of their own devising, one in which external news events, traditional culture, and contrary opinions are casually filtered out of awareness and existence. In the end, he faults the gatekeepers of academia for acceding to and even glorifying the notion that the coming Internet generation would be evolution's "next humans," equipped with new knowledge and skills best suited for the new millennium.

While elements of Mr. Bauerlein's argument resonate, the whole seems much less than the sum of his parts. His singular focus on the Internet and "screen technology" renders his work more of a polemic against teens' Internet-aided self-absorption and their peculiar, Facebook/YouTube culture. The author fails to credit any of a multitude of other contributing causes for student's apparent decrease in factual knowledge: the increased number of single-parent and two wage-earner homes, decreased hours of operation for public libraries, media lionizing and corporate marketing of youth culture as the only one that matters, rise of "school as parent," promotion of universally high self-esteem where all student work is of equal merit if it reflects one's true feelings, dumbing down school curriculums, abandonment of a demanding literary canon in favor of a lighter multicultural fare, classroom teachers' disregard of books as source materials in favor of Google searches and Wikipedia, and the national-to-local focus on standardized exam scores in English and math.

In addition, Bauerlein barely acknowledges what has doubtless been the greatest mass fraud perpetrated on the American family (by government, media, the computer industry, and educators) in the last century - the notion that every home and classroom must be wired, that any child who is not computer literate (whatever that means) by the end of high school is doomed to professional failure and a life of adult manual labor. Surely, each of these (and other) factors adds to the overall weakening of the intellectual atmosphere in schools while providing legitimacy to young people's keyboard time.

Brauerlein's book is something of a drudge to read, overly repetitive and too often larded to bursting with embedded statistics that would have been far more digestible in tabular form. The book's final chapter is certainly his most fatuous, a plaintive "why can't they be like we were"serenade. In that chapter, Brauerlein recalls in rosy hues the City College of New York in the 1930's, populated with the argumentative likes of Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, Irving Howe, Nathan Glazer, Julius Rosenberg, and Seymour Lipset. He questions whether any such grouping of nascent intellectuals can exist in today's universities, as if this group was perfectly representative of American university life of that era.

Worse, however, THE DUMBEST GENERATION suffers the faults of any book that so openly denigrates an entire age group while attributing their presumed failings to a single cause. The author's case that today's young people are any "dumber" than their parents is not even wholly convincing, relying as it does primarily on factual recall ability. Furthermore, it begs the inevitable question as to how much dumber still will be the children of this dumbest generation, and so on until we presumably reach the hilarious state parodied in the movie IDIOCRACY. There is no doubting that America's educational system is badly in need of a serious wake-up call. Regrettably, THE DUMBEST GENERATION is far from being that call.

If you are wondering why Britney Spears gets more air time than the Iraq or the other pressing problems of the world then this book is for you. This book should be required reading for every parent and every teacher in America. I think it confirms what people have been seeing already. How kids know technology but seem not to know content. The book shows how reason, logic and independent thought is disappearing from the country side.

The author, Mark Bauerlein attacks one of the biggest embedded lies in America. He does this head on, not from the side. This idea is that we are smarter than ever before because of computers. The new age of computers demands new ways of educating. This idea which has swept America is that computers by itself will save us and ensure the future. Somehow the technology that gives us Britney 24/7 and the vivid video games in the living room will also magically educate our kids. Technology will solve it all cry some.

Mark shows the idiocy of that idea in stunning detail. His points are very well documented from a variety of sources. The book is easy to read and flows well. The author first highlights the problem. The statistics are very clear, we aren't getting any smarter in spite of the growing use of technology in our lives. Then Mark shows how the educational institution has changed. Computers are being used more in education. Tests show they don't produce smarter kids. Standards are being lowered in the name of adapting to the "new age". This new age demands new procedures. Many in schools say this new age should be met all via computers.

Mark then shows how this constant barrage of the internet, technology and lower educational expectations has taken it's cost. Students do what students have done for centuries. When left to themselves they take the route of least resistance. They are studying less and focusing on stupid stuff. Instead of doing homework time is being filled with TV watching, chatting on web sites like myspace, and concerning themselves with such horrors as Britney Spear's life over other important things like history or science. This formula of constant stimulation for pleasure has eroded people's ability to reason, gather facts, and communicate.

Mark does point fingers, appropriately. He has a whole chapter that shows this problem is one of many problems society has to deal with from the 60s. The current teachers of today were the students of the 60s. The liberal attitudes then have become the liberal practices of today in the class room. The impact cuts across political lines. Arguments now come from catch phrases mentioned on talk shows or on web sites. They don't come from the great thinkers of the age or from the ideas and issues themselves.

The impact of this is degrading of the country. Our economic power is at stake. Students aren't getting the skills they need to compete in the world. They don't have an understanding of the world but they know who won American Idol. They graduate from college stuck in a perpetual childhood of sorts. He calls them Twixters. This erosion of independent thought threatens the nation. It creates people who will buy anything shinny as they do on web sites or something slick like what they see on TV or the computer screen, not what is right. This leads to election of people who might not be the best for the country.

I think everyone will love this book. It will open up your eyes in a new way.

Educators and parents need to hear Mark Bauerlein's message. With all the resources available via digital technology to today's youth, most of them are not benefiting from it intellectually. Why is this? According to Bauerlein, it is largely because of the way this technology is being used - unsupervised - to enable endless social networking and mindless adolescent chat. Having witnessed this behavior even among 20-somethings in my own workplace, it rings true. The younger generation is simply not reading anymore - at least not anything of lasting value. The level of ignorance of relatively recent American history, let alone formative events in our country's more distant past, is shocking - as detailed in copious statistics the author presents.

The most valuable part of this book, however, is its final chapter, in which Bauerlein uses the metaphor of Rip Van Winkle to explicate the serious consequences of historical and cultural ignorance. Beyond this, he attempts to explain how we have come to this serious juncture and what steps can be taken to turn the tide. After all, this wealth of available information via the Internet and digital media should help to make today's youth MORE aware than ever before of their rich cultural heritage, IF it is utilized properly. Too many adults have wrongly assumed that simply granting access to the technology would inevitably improve academic performance. Parents and educators need to recognize this and take action before it is too late.

I used to read a lot of books. I always had a book in my coat pocket. My collection is the envy of my friends - a lot of signed books including Marv Albert's signature in Franny and Zooey. You know what all that reading got me? A bed that was never over crowded. And a constant feeling that I was doomed. Most books are really depressing. They are written by people who have major psychological issues. They are drunks and junkies. They are mean and bitter. Many of them eventually kill themselves. Once I cut back on my reading - restricting it to the bathroom, I became happier with myself. Once I quit embracing the warmth of intellectual alienation, I was able to love others and let myself be loved. I didn't feel doomed to live a quiet and solitary life with my eyes glued to a page. And I got laid.

Who cares about the speaker of the house? Or the winner of American Idol? If given a choice between knowing either, you might as well give me the electro shock therapy. Do we need to keep engaging the moronic work of a lifelong academic who sucks off the teats of the dumb kids he detests? The college dork needs to get a real job like pushing a hotdog cart around Atlanta.

In 'The Dumbest Generation', author Mark Bauerlein articulates two big ideas:

1) Americans need to consider the opportunity cost associated with digital technology.

2) The 1960s Youth Movement (sanctioned by Rutgers University English professor Richard Poirier) began with "independent, creative, skeptical, mental energies", but later devolved into "routine irreverence and knowledge deficits".

This is a very valuable contribution to an ongoing debate over how to best educate our nation's youth. My only criticism is that the book's structure forces the reader to separate the wheat from the chaff.

For instance, Mr. Bauerlein front loads the book's first three chapters with a bevy of statistics to support his larger points. While these statistics help to refute Mr. Bauerlein's critics, they slow down a reader who is trying to grasp those larger points by themselves.

On the other hand, Mr. Bauerlein's writing really shines in Chapters Four, Five, and Six. In these chapters, Mr. Bauerlein incorporates more narrative to explain why digital technology is not the educational panacea that its proponents claim it to be. He also traces the beginnings of the anti-knowledge and anti-intellectual movement back to the 1960s. Here, the author's writing flows, making for a much more effective presentation.

I will start by admitting that I have not read this book (nor am I likely to, even though I am not by any stretch of the imagination a millenial). I am responding to the idea that this is a problem specific to that maligned generation.

I recently read a newspaper article bemoaning the fact that the writer's fifth grader had recently turned in a "research paper" almost entirely "cut and pasted" from Internet sources. The writer compared this to his own experience as a fifth grader, constructing a research paper over a period of weeks, spending hours in the library, transferring information to 3x5 cards, writing an outline, then a first draft, etc., etc., etc. I was struck by two things. First, he did not admit the obvious - that he and his classmates complained through every step of this process, and would not have done it on their own. They had not choice but to do all of that work, because their teachers, Principal, and parents (i.e., adults), insisted.

I was also struck by the fact that he, himself (a professional with a masters degree), did not insist that his little darling actually do the work, to his own apparently high standards. He did not object to his progeny stealing the words of others, but blamed the problem on the Internet! Not himself. Not the teacher. Not the school system. Not even the little plagiarist. But the Internet.

The dumbing down of America started long before the so-called "millenials" were born, and was not caused by the Internet, Ipods, mobile phones, video games, or any of the other things the author cites (contribution does not equal cause). This can be proved by a single observation. The current President was not elected - not once but twice - by millenials, but by their parents and grandparents (As I am sure the author points out, millenials rarely vote, though this may change with the current election). Case closed!

That doesn't mean we don't have a problem. The dumbing down of America is real, and ongoing, but it is much bigger than this author suggests, and clearly includes his own generation, as well.

I am old enough to know how to do mental arithmetic. Excluding the copious bibliography, this is a 236 page book that does not really get rolling until page 163. That's two-thirds of the way through. The first several chapters are a laborious accounting of all of the new generation's shortcomings. The chapter titles are "Knowledge Deficits", "The New Bibliophobes," "Screen Time," and "Online Learning And Not Learning." He marshals exhaustive documentation to demonstrate that today's kids do not read much and consequently do not have a very impressive vocabularies, knowledge of history, or familiarity with math and science.

In the last 10 years I have been a high school teacher and a grad student at the university. I would have granted these points rather readily. Moreover, most people who would dispute these points are not going to sit down and read a book that delights in exercising a postgraduate level vocabulary. My most poignant critique of this book would be that, excellent as it may be, the writing alone make it inaccessible to "The Dumbest Generation." If not them, who is Bauerlein trying to convince?

After he has successfully brushed off the dummies Bauerlein's last couple of chapters, which attempt to explain the phenomenon, make a series of very good points. We adults who are supposed to be in charge of our children's formation and education have abdicated our responsibilities. We have found it easier to cave in to them. To mistake a facile familiarity with the use of electronic gadgetry to socialize with deep understanding. To ascribe literary merit to their puerile Facebook blogs. To let them retreat for hours to their bedrooms surrounded by cell phones, telephones, computers, and every form of video and audio entertainment. To back away from engaging them in meaningful adult conversation about serious topics. They are growing up without adult guidance, only the now obligatory strokes to their self-esteem. The result is a disaster.

We allow our children to reject their cultural heritage in toto, not because they have examined it and found it wanting, but because it would be simply too much work to become familiar with it. Bauerlein cites young artists who have only contempt for the discipline that made Rembrandt and Picasso the great artists that they were. They proclaim that everything can be successfully invented ad novum, not on the basis of any evidence but on the conviction that it is not worth the effort to learn from what has been done previously. They are simply lazy and self-absorbed.

I am familiar with Bauerlein's geographical references in the Washington, DC area. He starts by talking about Walt Whitman high school, the subject of "The Overachievers," a chronicle of obsessive high school students. My daughter recently graduated from that school, and I would say that her peers put little premium on genuine learning. Some did study very hard to ace the standardized tests, but the passion for socializing certainly outweighed the passion for learning.

I could say the same for the elite private schools in which I taught. There is a minority, but it is a distinct minority, who relish discussing ideas. Even there, most kids seem to be caught up with the anti-intellectualism of our popular culture. There is a general disdain for hard work. Some of this disdain has its origins in the self-esteem movement. The schools want to avoid anything that will tend to highlight differences in innate ability among students. Even talented students are readily complicit in this game, because it means more time for their friends and other pursuits.

It was not much better at the University of Maryland, to which I return to pursue an advanced degree. Some of the older students in the College of Education seemed genuinely interested in the coursework. For most it was simply something to get out of the way so they can get on with their lives. The statistics Department was substantially better, but it is telling that out of a Department of 60 some graduate students, I was close to the only WASP male. The department was overwhelmingly Asian, and overseas Asians at that. Good students, but not a good reflection on American secondary education.

Bauerlein does not propose much in the way of remedies. I do not think that there are any. I live now in Kiev, where university level academics appear to have somewhat more rigor than in the United States, but the same pernicious effects are at work. The Internet cafés are so full of video game nuts that you can barely find the terminal to check your e-mail. No kid goes five minutes without initiating or receiving a call or an SMS on their cell phone.

Computer technologies in themselves are not bad. Word, Dragon Naturally Speaking, Excel and the Internet are Godsends for people who work with information. The question is getting kids to use them intelligently.

My own modest proposal would be to teach children how to use technology to do their schoolwork. It is a given that they all have computers. It is a tragedy that they do not know how to do anything useful with Excel, research a paper using the Internet to do much more than plagiarize, put together a PowerPoint presentation that is longer on substance that blinking whirligigs, or even use Microsoft Word to format the paper properly. I believe schools could teach this. I further believe that schools could use blocks to prevent rampant wasting of time cruising the Internet for material totally unrelated to school. I think that they could prevent the computer CD-ROM readers from being used to blare music during study halls. In a nutshell, I think that if we adults gave a damn about the future of the country, we might bestir ourselves to retake the control over our children and their education that we ceded in the 1960s. I'm not holding my breath.

I am old enough to know to do mental arithmetic. Excluding the copious bibliography, this is a 236 page book that does not really get rolling until page 163. That's two-thirds of the way through. The first several chapters are a laborious accounting of all of the new generation shortcomings. The chapter titles are "Knowledge Deficits", "The New Bibliophobes," "Screen Time," and "Online Learning And Not Learning." He marshals exhaustive documentation to demonstrate that today's kids do not read much and consequently do not have a very impressive vocabularies, knowledge of history, or familiarity with math and science.

In the last 10 years I have been a high school teacher and a grad student at the university. I would have granted these points rather readily. Moreover, most people who would dispute these points are not going to sit down and read a book that delights in exercising a postgraduate level vocabulary. My most poignant critique of this book would be that, excellent as it may be, the writing alone make it inaccessible to "The Dumbest Generation." If not them, who is Bauerlein trying to convince?

After he has successfully brushed off the dummies Bauerlein's last few chapters make a series of very good points. We adults who are supposed to be in charge of our children's formation and education have abdicated our responsibilities. We have found it easier to cave in to them. To mistake a facile familiarity with the use of electronic gadgetry for socializing with deep understanding. To ascribe literary merit to their puerile Facebook blogs. To let them retreat for hours to their bedrooms surrounded by cell phones, telephones, computers, and every form of video and audio entertainment. To back away from engaging them in meaningful adult conversation about serious topics. They are growing up without adult guidance, only the now obligatory strokes to their self-esteem. The result is a disaster.

We allow our children to reject their cultural heritage in toto, not because they have examined it and found it wanting, but because it would be simply too much work to become familiar with it. Bauerlein cites young artists who have only contempt for the discipline that made Rembrandt and Picasso the great artists that they were. They proclaim that everything can be successfully invented ad novum, not on the basis of any evidence but on the conviction that it is not worth the effort to learn from what has been done previously. They are simply lazy and self-absorbed.

I am familiar with Bauerlein's geographical references in the Washington, DC area. He starts by talking about Walt Whitman high school, the subject of "The Overachievers," a chronicle of obsessive high school students. My daughter recently graduated from that school, and I would say that her peers put little premium on genuine learning. Some did study very hard to ace the standardized tests, but the passion for socializing certainly outweighed the passion for learning.

I could say the same for the elite private schools in which I taught. There is a minority, but it is a distinct minority, who relish discussing ideas. Even there, most kids seem to be caught up with the anti-intellectualism of our popular culture. There is a general disdain for hard work. Some of this disdain has its origins in the self-esteem movement. The schools want to avoid anything that will tend to highlight differences in innate ability among students. Even talented students are readily complicit in this game, because it means more time for their friends and other pursuits.

It was not much better at the University of Maryland, to which I return to pursue an advanced degree. Some of the older students in the College of Education seemed genuinely interested in the coursework. For most it was simply something to get out of the way so they can get on with their lives. The statistics Department was substantially better, but it is telling that out of a Department of 60 some graduate students, I was close to the only WASP male. The department was overwhelmingly Asian, and overseas Asians at that. Good students, but not a good reflection on American secondary education.

Bauerlein does not propose much in the way of remedies. I do not think that there are any. I live now in Kiev, where university level academics appear to have somewhat more rigor than in the United States, but the same pernicious effects are at work. The Internet cafés are so full of video game nuts that you can barely find a terminal to check your e-mail. No kid goes five minutes without initiating or receiving a call or an SMS on their cell phone.

My own modest proposal would be to teach children how to use technology effectively to do their schoolwork. It is a given that they all have computers. It is a tragedy that they do not know how to do anything useful with Excel, research a paper using the Internet to do it much more than plagiarize, put together a PowerPoint presentation that is longer on substance that blinking whirligigs, or even use Microsoft Word to format the paper properly. I believe schools could teach this. I further believe that schools could use blocks to prevent rampant wasting of time cruising the Internet for material totally unrelated to school. I think that they could prevent the computer CD-ROM readers from being used to blare music during study halls. In a nutshell, I think that if we adults gave a damn about the future of the country, we might bestir ourselves to retake the control over our children and their education that we ceded in the 1960s. I'm not holding my breath.

If ever there is an explanation for the incredible rise of Barak Obama, it is the message of The Dumbest Generation. This is an excellent treatise on why the 18-29 generation is getting dumbed down in spite of technology.
When American Idol draws 30 million viewers and the Presidential debates only 3 million, the Republic is in peril. This book clarifies the issues.

English professor Mark Bauerlein spends 250 pages telling us what America's young don't know. Here are some massive trends affecting students over the last 30 to 50 years he doesn't seem to know: the evolution from elitism toward universal education, the defunding of public education, college tuitions rising four times faster than inflation, erupting student debt, forced deferral of higher education, the influx of non-English-speaking students, the rise of the service economy... details like that.

What's even more amazing--in a book that lauds scholarship and intellectual inquiry--there is almost no original research, especially on the fundamental point the "dumbest generation" title claims to address. I expected Bauerlein to make his case by analyzing long-term surveys by the Higher Education Research Institute and Monitoring the Future and dozens of Digest of Education Statistics tables on trends, etc.--but he barely mentions them.

The reason, of course, is that the best education information exposes how superficial this book is. The biggest trend it omits (among many) is that since the 1950s, America has radically expanded its education system: high schools now include the poorest third of youth and colleges now educate more than just the richest fraction. The proportion of 16-24 year-olds who were enrolled in school or had graduated from high school rose from 60% to 91%, the percentage of high school graduates who had completed standard coursework tripled, the proportion of high school seniors taking SAT and ACT college admission tests doubled, and the percentage enrolled in college more than doubled.

Such rapid expansion bringing tens of millions of formerly uneducated youth into the education system would be expected to reduce average test scores. Remarkably, this didn't happen. Older students' reading and math scale comprehension scores are just as high, and younger students' are considerably higher, compared to 30 years ago. After bottoming out in the mid-1970s (when Bauerlein was in high school), standardized SAT and ACT scores rose slightly even as vastly greater percentages of high schoolers were taking the tests. If we compared the share of students fluent in two or more languages, the generational gains would be even more impressive.

Take a salient example: in 1975, American student scores on the ACT standard test of English, math, reading, and science averaged 20.6; in 2007, 21.2. Not much of an improvement in three decades, correct? Here's the gain: in 1975, just 17% of the nation's 18-year-olds took the test; in 2007, 30%. SAT and other standard tests show similar trends. Likewise, fewer than one-third of high school graduates of 30 years ago had completed a basic core curriculum (four English, three social science, two science, and two math credits), compared to over 80% today.

Bauerlein's limited analysis focuses only on the elitist "vertical" accumulation of knowledge (whether the average test taker is smarter today) while ignoring the more important "horizontal" gains (the spread of knowledge to broader segments of the population). If Bauerlein is really concerned about democracy, he should be cheering these egalitarian improvements.

One would expect Bauerlein to fully discuss the universalization of American education before calling today's students "dumb." Instead, he fills the book with quickie outtakes from some recent surveys absent historical context, secondhand numbers he apparently didn't analyze, silly television and mass-media quips, and quotes from teachers and others castigating the younger generation with epithets that were already hackneyed in Socrates' time. Bauerlein indulges the standard array of shallow prejudices against adolescents ("the 17-year-old mind," "the 18-year-old life," the "adolescent horde"), the usual snobbish praise of himself and middle-agers' self-anointed citizenship and intellectuality, and the same-old myth that kids today have too many rights. Meanwhile, his own narrowness is painful: nearly all the books he recommends are by classical European authors, as if 90% of the world's intellectual tradition didn't exist.

Put simply, this book is full of fluff and conceit, a lot of it blatantly unfair. Bauerlein cites some recent alarms (the same that recur every decade or two) to insinuate that today's youth represent an apocalyptic "decline" and "breakdown" compared to older America's presumably cultured, intellectual past (a past he never shows actually existed). He quotes the HERI survey to deplore today's "college delinquency" (being late, skipping classes, etc.) but fails to note the same survey reports these same behaviors going back 40 years. He complains about low voter turnout among 18-29 year-olds but somehow missed the massive increase in the 2004 election to record peaks. He cites a sketchy survey on political knowledge as evidencing young people's ignorance but fails to mention it also finds big knowledge gaps by race, sex, and education and income level.

Bauerlein doesn't even title his book right. His gripe is not that today's youth really are the "dumbest generation," but that "young Americans today are no more learned or skillful than their predecessors." That's an entirely different point, and it's contradicted by measures showing higher proportions of today's younger generation do know more.

But what is really disturbing about this book and its fans' uncritical praise is the self-adulation and complete lack of humility. Face it, we older Americans (I'm 57) aren't exactly setting cosmic records as intellectual beacons, enlightened leaders, and philosopher kings. This is yet another in the avalanche of egotistical books by Boomer and older Xer authors lavishly praising ourselves and our generation as morally and intellectually superior to the "dumb," "unworthy" young that utterly fail to represent the critical scholarship these authors say they prize.
--Mike Males, Ph.D., http://www.YouthFacts.org

A few years ago, a Congress composed mostly of people 50+ followed a 50+ president into an unjustified war based on false and unreviewed data on WMD. By the time my generation retires, the baby boomers will have completely drained Social Security, leaving us to fend for ourselves in our old age. You tell me who the dumbest generation is.

My generation, although we may have low voter turnout, voted by a full 10% for John Kerry, and along with voters 60+ was the only group that favored Gore over Bush. If Obama is elected, it will be due to the overwhelming support of the youth vote. We boosted Clinton to his first victory (thanks in part, yes, to his sax playing and underwear declarations on MTV).

As for MTV, don't even try to put that on us. I was six months in the womb when the Buggles first declared that video killed the radio star, and no one in my generation is head of Viacom. That they decide that "youth programming" must be idiotic is a reflection of their cynicism, not our moral or intellectual decrepitude. This is nothing new, see the drive-in Frankie and Annette beach bunny comedies of the 50's as evidence that the young will always me the target market for cheap "entertainments."

The failure of young Americans to embrace culture and literature is in due large part to the increasingly regimented and results-obsessed focus of American education (thank you very much, No-Child-Left-Behind). Arts and musics programs have been swept aside in importance (where they haven't vanished entirely). I predict this will only get worse as the boomers, the most selfish and indulged generation, retire and decide that other's people's children are not worth their tax dollars and vote accordingly.

As for the actual book, aside from being grossly pick-and-choosy about what material he uses to condemn us (Jay Leno's comedy bits? Really?) He also skews his findings to make them sound worse (1/4 of young Americans not knowing who Dick Cheney instead that 3/4 do). A balanced look at the the cause-and-effect of youth apathy might have been interesting, instead, this is nothing but a 200+ page diatribe, insulting at worst, tiresome at best.