The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future

By John RingoMichael Z. WilliamsonMichael Williamson, et al.

Book Overview

THIS SHOCKING, SURPRISING ENTERTAINING ROMP INTO THE INTELLECTUAL NETHER REGIONS OF TODAY'S UNDER-THIRTY SET REVEALS THE DISTURBING AND, ULTIMATELY, INCONTROVERTIBLE TRUTH- CYBERCULTURE IS TURNING US INTO A SOCIETY OF KNOW-NOTHINGS. 'If you're the parent of someone under 20 and read only one non-fiction book this fall, make it this one. Bauerlein's simple but jarring thesis is that technology and the digital culture it has created are not broadening the horizon of the younger generation; they are narrowing it to a self-absorbed social universe that blocks out virtually everything else.' -Don Campbell, USA Today 'Throughout The Dumbest Generation , there are . . . keen insights into how the new digital world really is changing the way young people engage with information and the obstacles they face in integrating any of it meaningfully. These are insights that educators, parents, and other adults ignore at their peril.' -Lee Drutman, Los Angeles Times 'Demonstrates how the Internet is making young people increasingly ignorant about almost everything except online video games and the naricissism of self-authored Internet content.' - Andrew Keen, The Independent 'Argues that cultural and technological forces, far from opening up an exciting new world of learning and thinking, have conspired to create a level of public ignorance so high as to threaten our democracy. Adults are so busy imagining the ways that technology can improve classroom learning or improve the public debate that they've blinded themselves to the collective dumbing down that is actually taking place.' - David Robinson, The Wall Street Journal 'It wouldn't be going too far to call this book the Why Johnny Can't Read for the digital age.' - Booklist This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1585427128
• ISBN13: 9781585427123
• Release Date: May 2009
• Publisher: TarcherPerigee
• Length: 253 Pages
• Weight: 0.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

TLDNR

Is there a cliff notes or audio book version available? This book seem awfully long and full of words. I get lost after the fourth page.

Revealing

I knew I wanted to read this after I could tell it irritated the education establishment and the ignorant yet arrogant youth. The truth hurts but you cannot see how we're falling behind other nations and defend what we have in our society. We're told that if we just get all kids laptops they'll be Einsteins. Meanwhile the kids not only DO NOT read, many of the them CANNOT read.

As a card-carrying member of the dumbest generation, I endorse this book.

Mark Bauerlein begins his book by quoting an article about the frenzied, high-stakes world of American high school students. Students are pushed to succeed like never before, forced to spend their every waking minute in intense studies. Parents and teachers lean over their shoulders, brutally forcing them to ignore all leisure activity and focus solely on the goal of college. It all adds up to a nonstop barrage of academics...

The Current Prisoners In Plato's Cave

This is an astonishingly insightful book. The fact that it has not so far garnered avalanches of commendation on this site suggests to me the dunces of our age, comfortable with the present scheme of things, may be in confederacy against it. Its thesis is that the generations since the 60's have become increasingly self-absorbed and therefore sadly unfit to maintain a democratic society. For requisite intellectual combat,...

I weep for the future

Sixty-three percent of test takers couldn't find Iraq on a map??? Fifty-two percent of high school seniors picked Germany, Japan, or Italy as allies of the United States in World War II? Are you SERIOUS? A well-documented, reasoned look at America's Dumbest Generation. The author pulls no punches. He isn't out to insult or deride -- rather, his points serve to highlight and emphasize the severity of the problem. Highly...