9 ms·

How America is Dumbing Down the Next Generation (2012)

18 points by kunai 13y ago

dusklight 13y ago
Yeah and when cars replaced horses, the next generation got dumber because they no longer learned the skills they would have acquired by learning how to ride a horse? If anything, based on what I have seen, the next generation will be shockingly smarter, more adept at fact-checking, much better at focusing and multi-tasking, much more disillusioned about institutionalized education and much more interested in self-directed learning (with much more options to do so)
- kunai 13y ago
  I do agree with you. I submitted this to portray the other side of the future -- what many people see as the negative side. For those unlike us on HN, who aren't versed too much into technology and innovation, the future can be scary, and this is usually how people feel about it.
  - windexh8er 13y ago
    The real truth here was the topic of consumers (literal) thinking they, or their kids, are "smarter" today because they can use an iPad. The general populous has always leaned towards consumption over building - but the great thing is now is one of the best times to really be a maker, considering most anything is easily attainable in a short period of time. But, will there be more smarter people? No. The reality is that all my friends and I could program the blinking VCR clock when our parents were few and far between in the 80s. Today it's the middle schoolers who have Arduino, Raspberry Pi and are writing apps they're running on VPS and IaaS. The game has shifted, but the average consumer is no "smarter". I had a conversation with a neuro Dr. once and he told me to think of your brain like an iceberg, one that melts as you get older or mess with it via externalities. Your mental capacity is reflected in the number of penguins that fit on that iceberg, and when you consume and learn other penguins get pushed off. We're not "smarter" but we no longer require the penguins that help us hunt our food. This is why over consumption of data you don't want or need is counter productive to your "smarts".
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Yeah and when cars replaced horses, the next generation got dumber because they no longer learned the skills they would have acquired by learning how to ride a horse? Well, at the time they merely replaced those skills with learning how to drive a car. But, in a future where you won't have to replace previous skills with anything (e.g self driving cars, calculator vs having to know basic math in your head etc) it can be argued that it can lead into a general dumbness. Some people will say that it will "free resources for higher level learning" etc, but in all probabillity it will just infantilize most people, a la "Brave New World". We already have huge resources for higher level learning and most people just spend their time watching 3 hours TV and day and learning celebrity gossip on the internet. >If anything, based on what I have seen, the next generation will be shockingly smarter, more adept at fact-checking, much better at focusing and multi-tasking, much more disillusioned about institutionalized education and much more interested in self-directed learning A few perhaps. For the majority it will be the same ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades.
  - takluyver 13y ago
    > ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades. Do you have evidence that it's increasing? Maybe there have just always been dumb people. Of course you can point to amazing discoveries or great literature from the past, but that only represents a tiny slice of the population. And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >Do you have evidence that it's increasing? (...) And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc. For those kind of things they is no hard evidence. One either sees that happening through historical changes, or does not. But there are lot of secondary indications. For example the books we're writing don't compare at all favorably to past works. Including the most cherished books of our era. Whereas literature, poerty, etc was constantly replenishing it's stock for centuries, there has been nothing like what we had even 50 years ago. Same for the fine arts -- there have been no great new art movements since pop art (which even that was a lame immitation of older ideas). Same (and worse) for philosophy. As for science, after the low hanging fruit (which demanded huge breakthroughs, like Newton's, Darwin's, Maxwell's, Einstein's, Cantor's, Turing's etc) have been picked, there's mostly boring incremental work -- we might as well have had stopped doing science. It's mostly engineering these days.
- btilly 13y ago
  ...much better at focusing and multi-tasking... This one is wrong. According to current research, the more practice we have at multi-tasking, the better we think we are at at, and the worse our actual performance is on the task we're supposed to be doing. Therefore we're raising a generation that will do worse, but will be unaware of it.
zeteo 13y ago
The kids are OK. They'll be messed up a lot more by college loans and Social Security for baby boomers than by tire sensors.
jotm 13y ago
Not dumbing down, more like freeing up resources for higher level thinking...
- dgallagher 13y ago
  Exactly. You see the same trend in programming by way of abstraction.
  - angersock 13y ago
    It's like kids these days don't even know how to use the XOR trick for linked lists. >:(
crashandburn4 13y ago
I read things like this so often I can't help but assume that a lot of people think this but I find the thought so incomprehensibly alien that I can't really understand why. To me it makes no sense at any level.
- coldtea 13y ago
  To give an example I think you'll understand better. Let's say tomorrow the stable life you have collapses. A war, a meteor strikes, riots -- whatever. You have no electricity anymore, no super-markets, no gas, and everybody is trying to survive. What exactly survival skills do you have in a situation like this? If you are a fat, lazy-ass programmer, are you any worth at all top people trying to survive there? Your ancestor from 5-6 generations ago, living in some log cabin, could probably be ten times as useful and knowledgable about what had to be done. Something was lost in the process from man surviving using several skills to couch potato programmer that has everything served to him on a silver platter. Now, you might find those kind of things unlikely to ever be needed again, but you can see how it makes sense at ONE level at least. (What I described, btw, is a quite common theme in literature and movies).
j2kun 13y ago
I don't know what this article has to do with America as a country. Do people in other countries not embrace technological innovations? </sarcasm>
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
sbierwagen 13y ago
Flagged.
jspark 13y ago
The Greek philosopher Socrates objected to writing because he believed that it would negatively impact memory. The next generation will be just fine.
- coldtea 13y ago
  It's extremely naive (and, oh so, contemporary) to treat the philosophical arguments put forward in that text (which was written by Plato, btw, who attributes it to the Egyptian King Thamus), as some kind of failed prophecy. Writing DID have a negative impact on the directness and vividness of memory of pre-writing civilizations, and the role that memory played there. To use a somewhat crude analogue, Plato was speaking of a phenomenon akin to what we have today, where any idiot with an internet connection can play the know-it-all in conversation, not by having studied a subject and absorbed it, but by just looking it up on Wikipedia to get a shallow quote. This, which we have all witnessed on online forums, also holds for written books. Yes, they can help solidify memory and pass it over to the next generations. But they also served as an easy shortcut to information, compared to memory (which takes years and experience to create). While everybody can aknowledge what was gained, few (like Plato) could see what was lost in the process.
  - dusklight 13y ago
    Can we agree that writing did have negative impacts, but given the trajectory of human civilization since then, that the benefits have outweighed the costs?
    - coldtea 13y ago
      >Can we agree that writing did have negative impacts, but given the trajectory of human civilization since then, that the benefits have outweighed the costs? Sounds reasonable, but then again, the work of philosophy (or thought in general) is to question what sounds reasonable. For example, why should we have to be that proud of the "trajectory of human civilization since then"? Sure, we since had computers and brain surgery. We also had nazi concentration camps, 2 wolrd wars, colonialism, Stalinism, the nuclear arms race, and global warming. Oh, and Justin Bieber. If a WW III thing was to happen in the next 50 years, taking most of the population with it, I'm sure more than a few people will think "Damn, we were better off before all that technological shit -- perhaps even writing enabled us for more that we were good to handle".
tranquilitybass 13y ago
This article was written by a bot. This comment was written by a bot. This article was flagged by a bot. This comment was upvoted by a bot. This site was refactored by a bot. This comment was flagged by a bot. Shut up bot. This human was sedated by a bot. Now isn't that better human? Yes bot. Yes. Yes bot. Mmm bo-o-ot Your wellness was optimized by a bot.
stephengillie 13y ago
http://xkcd.com/603/ http://xkcd.com/603/
- richardjordan 13y ago
  Just because XKCD says it doesn't make it true. The idea that there because societal decline claims of the past might be interpreted in ways that leave them open to debate doesn't mean that there is no possibility of societal decline.
lnanek2 13y ago
I was really sad when my wife made me take out the jump starter, battery recharger, and electric air pump out from the car trunk to make more room. She says the car always warns her when the air is low far ahead of time, has run flat tires anyway, and the one time in its entire existence it didn't start she just had to push the on star button on the dash and someone came immediately. Damn I like my tools, though. :(
r0s 13y ago
I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but none of the "skills" mentioned are very valuable. People one hundred years ago also took every convenience available. Maybe your average turn of the century citizen could use a radio, but few could build or repair one. Information access and understanding is WAY higher in general than ever before. Anyone who can use a google map can use a regular map, they'll just be frustrated by the lack of information that was never there. People rely on these new sources of information that augment the old, limited information. It's not replacing anything.
richardjordan 13y ago
Lot of comments dismissing this, as their always are when we see kids are getting dumber articles. Yet in my life I think it's been pretty much factually accurate that graduating class after graduating class has emerged from education with slightly lower levels of knowledge in key areas. I wonder if a lot of folks live in too much of a bubble of people like them to really understand this. I don't know what other explanation there can be because I see this around me all the time.

18 points by kunai 13y ago

Yeah and when cars replaced horses, the next generation got dumber because they no longer learned the skills they would have acquired by learning how to ride a horse? If anything, based on what I have seen, the next generation will be shockingly smarter, more adept at fact-checking, much better at focusing and multi-tasking, much more disillusioned about institutionalized education and much more interested in self-directed learning (with much more options to do so)

kunai 13y ago
I do agree with you. I submitted this to portray the other side of the future -- what many people see as the negative side. For those unlike us on HN, who aren't versed too much into technology and innovation, the future can be scary, and this is usually how people feel about it.
- windexh8er 13y ago
  The real truth here was the topic of consumers (literal) thinking they, or their kids, are "smarter" today because they can use an iPad. The general populous has always leaned towards consumption over building - but the great thing is now is one of the best times to really be a maker, considering most anything is easily attainable in a short period of time. But, will there be more smarter people? No. The reality is that all my friends and I could program the blinking VCR clock when our parents were few and far between in the 80s. Today it's the middle schoolers who have Arduino, Raspberry Pi and are writing apps they're running on VPS and IaaS. The game has shifted, but the average consumer is no "smarter". I had a conversation with a neuro Dr. once and he told me to think of your brain like an iceberg, one that melts as you get older or mess with it via externalities. Your mental capacity is reflected in the number of penguins that fit on that iceberg, and when you consume and learn other penguins get pushed off. We're not "smarter" but we no longer require the penguins that help us hunt our food. This is why over consumption of data you don't want or need is counter productive to your "smarts".
coldtea 13y ago
>Yeah and when cars replaced horses, the next generation got dumber because they no longer learned the skills they would have acquired by learning how to ride a horse? Well, at the time they merely replaced those skills with learning how to drive a car. But, in a future where you won't have to replace previous skills with anything (e.g self driving cars, calculator vs having to know basic math in your head etc) it can be argued that it can lead into a general dumbness. Some people will say that it will "free resources for higher level learning" etc, but in all probabillity it will just infantilize most people, a la "Brave New World". We already have huge resources for higher level learning and most people just spend their time watching 3 hours TV and day and learning celebrity gossip on the internet. >If anything, based on what I have seen, the next generation will be shockingly smarter, more adept at fact-checking, much better at focusing and multi-tasking, much more disillusioned about institutionalized education and much more interested in self-directed learning A few perhaps. For the majority it will be the same ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades.
- takluyver 13y ago
  > ever increasing dumbness that has been going on for decades. Do you have evidence that it's increasing? Maybe there have just always been dumb people. Of course you can point to amazing discoveries or great literature from the past, but that only represents a tiny slice of the population. And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Do you have evidence that it's increasing? (...) And we're still doing science, still writing books, etc. For those kind of things they is no hard evidence. One either sees that happening through historical changes, or does not. But there are lot of secondary indications. For example the books we're writing don't compare at all favorably to past works. Including the most cherished books of our era. Whereas literature, poerty, etc was constantly replenishing it's stock for centuries, there has been nothing like what we had even 50 years ago. Same for the fine arts -- there have been no great new art movements since pop art (which even that was a lame immitation of older ideas). Same (and worse) for philosophy. As for science, after the low hanging fruit (which demanded huge breakthroughs, like Newton's, Darwin's, Maxwell's, Einstein's, Cantor's, Turing's etc) have been picked, there's mostly boring incremental work -- we might as well have had stopped doing science. It's mostly engineering these days.
btilly 13y ago
...much better at focusing and multi-tasking... This one is wrong. According to current research, the more practice we have at multi-tasking, the better we think we are at at, and the worse our actual performance is on the task we're supposed to be doing. Therefore we're raising a generation that will do worse, but will be unaware of it.

zeteo 13y ago

The kids are OK. They'll be messed up a lot more by college loans and Social Security for baby boomers than by tire sensors.

jotm 13y ago

Not dumbing down, more like freeing up resources for higher level thinking...

dgallagher 13y ago
Exactly. You see the same trend in programming by way of abstraction.
- angersock 13y ago
  It's like kids these days don't even know how to use the XOR trick for linked lists. >:(

crashandburn4 13y ago

I read things like this so often I can't help but assume that a lot of people think this but I find the thought so incomprehensibly alien that I can't really understand why. To me it makes no sense at any level.

coldtea 13y ago
To give an example I think you'll understand better. Let's say tomorrow the stable life you have collapses. A war, a meteor strikes, riots -- whatever. You have no electricity anymore, no super-markets, no gas, and everybody is trying to survive. What exactly survival skills do you have in a situation like this? If you are a fat, lazy-ass programmer, are you any worth at all top people trying to survive there? Your ancestor from 5-6 generations ago, living in some log cabin, could probably be ten times as useful and knowledgable about what had to be done. Something was lost in the process from man surviving using several skills to couch potato programmer that has everything served to him on a silver platter. Now, you might find those kind of things unlikely to ever be needed again, but you can see how it makes sense at ONE level at least. (What I described, btw, is a quite common theme in literature and movies).

j2kun 13y ago

I don't know what this article has to do with America as a country. Do people in other countries not embrace technological innovations? </sarcasm>

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

sbierwagen 13y ago

Flagged.

jspark 13y ago

The Greek philosopher Socrates objected to writing because he believed that it would negatively impact memory. The next generation will be just fine.

coldtea 13y ago
It's extremely naive (and, oh so, contemporary) to treat the philosophical arguments put forward in that text (which was written by Plato, btw, who attributes it to the Egyptian King Thamus), as some kind of failed prophecy. Writing DID have a negative impact on the directness and vividness of memory of pre-writing civilizations, and the role that memory played there. To use a somewhat crude analogue, Plato was speaking of a phenomenon akin to what we have today, where any idiot with an internet connection can play the know-it-all in conversation, not by having studied a subject and absorbed it, but by just looking it up on Wikipedia to get a shallow quote. This, which we have all witnessed on online forums, also holds for written books. Yes, they can help solidify memory and pass it over to the next generations. But they also served as an easy shortcut to information, compared to memory (which takes years and experience to create). While everybody can aknowledge what was gained, few (like Plato) could see what was lost in the process.
- dusklight 13y ago
  Can we agree that writing did have negative impacts, but given the trajectory of human civilization since then, that the benefits have outweighed the costs?
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Can we agree that writing did have negative impacts, but given the trajectory of human civilization since then, that the benefits have outweighed the costs? Sounds reasonable, but then again, the work of philosophy (or thought in general) is to question what sounds reasonable. For example, why should we have to be that proud of the "trajectory of human civilization since then"? Sure, we since had computers and brain surgery. We also had nazi concentration camps, 2 wolrd wars, colonialism, Stalinism, the nuclear arms race, and global warming. Oh, and Justin Bieber. If a WW III thing was to happen in the next 50 years, taking most of the population with it, I'm sure more than a few people will think "Damn, we were better off before all that technological shit -- perhaps even writing enabled us for more that we were good to handle".

tranquilitybass 13y ago

This article was written by a bot. This comment was written by a bot. This article was flagged by a bot. This comment was upvoted by a bot. This site was refactored by a bot. This comment was flagged by a bot. Shut up bot. This human was sedated by a bot. Now isn't that better human? Yes bot. Yes. Yes bot. Mmm bo-o-ot Your wellness was optimized by a bot.

stephengillie 13y ago

http://xkcd.com/603/ http://xkcd.com/603/

richardjordan 13y ago
Just because XKCD says it doesn't make it true. The idea that there because societal decline claims of the past might be interpreted in ways that leave them open to debate doesn't mean that there is no possibility of societal decline.

lnanek2 13y ago

I was really sad when my wife made me take out the jump starter, battery recharger, and electric air pump out from the car trunk to make more room. She says the car always warns her when the air is low far ahead of time, has run flat tires anyway, and the one time in its entire existence it didn't start she just had to push the on star button on the dash and someone came immediately. Damn I like my tools, though. :(

r0s 13y ago

I know this is tongue-in-cheek, but none of the "skills" mentioned are very valuable. People one hundred years ago also took every convenience available. Maybe your average turn of the century citizen could use a radio, but few could build or repair one. Information access and understanding is WAY higher in general than ever before. Anyone who can use a google map can use a regular map, they'll just be frustrated by the lack of information that was never there. People rely on these new sources of information that augment the old, limited information. It's not replacing anything.

richardjordan 13y ago

Lot of comments dismissing this, as their always are when we see kids are getting dumber articles. Yet in my life I think it's been pretty much factually accurate that graduating class after graduating class has emerged from education with slightly lower levels of knowledge in key areas. I wonder if a lot of folks live in too much of a bubble of people like them to really understand this. I don't know what other explanation there can be because I see this around me all the time.