I recently came across some research and writings wondering whether the Millenials, born between 1982 and 2000, are part of an “intellectually devoid generation.” The ASCD Blog takes a look at Prof. Mark Baurlein’s work, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young American’s and Jeopardizes Our Future. The author believes that students don’t read and think, but practice, “information retrieval, not knowledge formation, and the material passes from Web to homework paper without lodging in the minds of the students.”
I haven’t read the book but have begun to read the reviews on the author’s site and it looks to highlight many trends that we see around us and experiences that many of us have had in daily life since the rise of the Internet and other forms of media. Here is a nice excerpt from a review that describes something I did with a print newspaper article yesterday.
Elsewhere, Bauerlein also echoes Carr by citing a study of online reading habits which has discovered something called the “F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content.” This is the technique of reading horizontally across the first few lines of text, then halfway across for a few more, and finally vertically the rest of the way down the page. There can be few of us who do not feel a twinge of guilty recognition at this description. Busted!
I am not sure if all of this means that we have the dumbest generation coming of age, but we do know there have been many management challenges with this generation.
The entrepreneurial generation blog over at Entrepreneur.com points to PR firm Porter Novell’s experiences giving Millenials their own “mini” firm in order to empower them.
According to Entrepreneur.com, “Last summer, the firm created a ‘pop up’ agency called Jack & Bill (named after the firm’s founders, Jack Porter and Bill Novelli) and staffed it with eight young employees.”
“We have an agency filled with millennials, with a need to feel empowered,” Porter Novelli managing partner Lisa Rosenberg told Stuart Elliott of The New York Times.
Is this generation so lame that firms have to make up projects in order to keep their interest? Perhaps all work with these Millenials should flow through MySpace, Facebook, and CollegeHumor.com. Maybe that will make it easier integrating the “Dumbest Generation” into the modern workplace. Any thoughts?
October 8th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
I’m Gen X and believe me I feel the generation gap.
The Millennial Generation seems to feel entitled to have it all at an early age. I’m reminded of those articles in the NYT about the “Gold Collar Generation”, wearing high price fashion clothes and drinking expensive cocktails despite low wages.
There seems to be an implicit bet that a) the retirement of the Baby Boom generation will create such a worker demand that the current generation can pretty much dictate terms in the labor market and b) the creativity many of these people exhibit is the real key to the success of the 21st century firm, not traditional notions such as paying your dues.
The first one I’m skeptical of. In the mid-90’s my employer drew some trend lines that showed that in order to keep growing at their current rates, by today they’d be hiring every college grad in the United States. As it turned out, those grads ended up being Indian and Philippino grads, not American ones. In a globally competitive world, employers have access to a worldwide talent pool and in the long run aren’t constrained to their home market.
The wild card is creativity and whether the Millennials of America can simply out innovate their peers overseas. We shall see.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
No, this is garbage without merit.
There are many challenges to our modern age of abundant information. We have not yet figured out how to maximize learning with this bounty.
Of course, no other generation figured it out either.
Thick-headed cultural commentators have always found something wrong with the current generation: television, rock&roll, dancing (!), jazz clubs, etc.
There’s no doubt our generation will get the “big” issues more right than previous generations — sorry, but Jesse Helms won’t serve a lifetime in politics.
The “dumbest” of this generation don’t suffer from too much stimulus, but too little impetus from their family and incentive from the world around them to make use of the great bounty presented before them.
Yet, even these folks are still only “dumb” compared to their contemporaries. Compared to the worst of previous generations they are positively brainiacs. They can read better, write better, find information more easily, etc.
Calling this the “dumbest generation” is trite sensationalism, and unfortunately distracts from the very real educational challenges before us. Perhaps we should focus less on celebrating an educational heritage of duck-and-cover, all-white, factory-style schools, and more on shaking ourselves free of this industrial-age vestige, which is holding back the skills training we need to advance even further.
October 8th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
You are spearheading your very own dumbest generation if you spend any amount of time reading online and don’t practice “F reading”.
October 8th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
And, when looking for information, “F” stands for Ctrl+F, “Find on this page”, with almost no reading at all …
October 8th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
Time magazine resurrected, sounds like the rap it tried to give the X generation 15 or so years ago. Ridiculous.
I teach law to these goods. They’re extremely bright, motivated and secure with themselves in an unseemly way. Social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship generally is on the rise with this generation in a big way. Having taught and worked with this generation extensively, fellow readers, you need to do nothing more than “flush” this ridiculous book.
The X and Y (or millenial) generations will return the US to renewed prominence and promise after the ransacking it’s been subjected to over the last 20-30 years by the self-absorbed boomers.
October 9th, 2008 at 5:39 am
I have seen the real team entrepreneur spirit up in Finland at Team Academy (Peter Senge’s congratulations to their 15th anniversary you will find on my blog). These folks are really hot and yet the rest of the supper (society, people, organizations) is not yet on this heat-wave.
For older people who are seeking stability in planning, managing and doing things that always have been done this way this new way of entrepreneurship combined with networking (remember the knowledge worker and Peter Drucker already some decades ago about them, now quickly shifting into Knowledge Worker 2.0) is kind of scary, new, unfamiliar.
How to connect both worlds that seem so different and yet have the same goal as being useful for society, their family, themselves, their peers,….?
Cheers,
Ralf
October 9th, 2008 at 7:56 am
“The dumbest generation” is not the first to say that new technology will ruin younger generations’ minds: 2400 years ago, Plato wrote something quite similar in “Phaedrus”. At that time, the new technology was the written alphabet:
At the Egyptian city of Naucratis, there was a famous old god, whose name was Theuth; the bird which is called the Ibis is sacred to him, and he was the inventor of many arts, such as arithmetic and calculation and geometry and astronomy and draughts and dice, but his great discovery was the use of letters. Now in those days the god Thamus was the king of the whole country of Egypt; and he dwelt in that great city of Upper Egypt which the Hellenes call Egyptian Thebes, and the god himself is called by them Ammon. To him came Theuth and showed his inventions, desiring that the other Egyptians might be allowed to have the benefit of them; he enumerated them, and Thamus enquired about their several uses, and praised some of them and censured others, as he approved or disapproved of them. It would take a long time to repeat all that Thamus said to Theuth in praise or blame of the various arts. But when they came to letters, This, said Theuth, will make the Egyptians wiser and give them better memories; it is a specific both for the memory and for the wit. Thamus replied: O most ingenious Theuth, the parent or inventor of an art is not always the best judge of the utility or inutility of his own inventions to the users of them. And in this instance, you who are the father of letters, from a paternal love of your own children have been led to attribute to them a quality which they cannot have; for this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves. The specific which you have discovered is an aid not to memory, but to reminiscence, and you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth; they will be hearers of many things and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing; they will be tiresome company, having the show of wisdom without the reality.
October 9th, 2008 at 8:22 am
I agree this sounds like the same argument older generations have been saying about younger generations since Plato’s time or before.
However, perhaps part of what the author is observing is an “ignorant” generation.
Ignorance is different from stupidity and should not be confused with it. The education system in many areas of the US (and likely other countries) has slipped so badly that many students emerging have limited knowledge of geography, poor math and reading skills and write atrociously, etc. To older generations who had these skills by age 18, I’m sure they appear “dumb.” It’s easy to blame technology (or rap music), but that’s not the cause.
When I was a grad student T.A’ing and tutoring undergrads I really noticed this. The students who had been to public schools were often in need of remedial academic help. If you only read their term papers or marked their exams you’d think they were “dumb.” If you spent time talking with them about the same concepts they could not express on paper, they actually had really good ideas.
October 9th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Wendy, I agree with your experience, but you are judging the dregs of modern society with yourself and your friends who are among the most successful of your own.
I’m sure if Gen X’ers judge their generation by their friends in 30 years they too will be disappointed by the relative incompetence of the days’ plebs.
October 9th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Consider this: the death of the expression of knowing someone’s number “by heart”; and the old speed dials with 10 or 20 numbers. Now many people have several hundred phone numbers saved in their phones. More knowledge exists. More innovation exists. More ways of connecting exist. More diversity exists. More lifestyle options exist. This is not the dumbest generation; it’s the most connected generation with the most options of all kinds available to it. Instead of spending time memorizing “facts”, this generation spends time studying and weaving them together to bring new things to life; and touching more people and places in ways that prior generations could only have dreamed of. Think how many new organizations exist because they can connect via e-mail and websites without postage and publishing charges. The entry costs have dropped. Today, it’s all about concepts and ideas.
October 9th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
As someone who born five years short of this generation, I have to disagree with them being called the dumbest.
First, they are young. They don’t have the experience the rest of us have. They’re not bitter and jaded yet.
Second, look at what they went through to get an education. At every step, their education budgets were SLASHED. Think back to your classroom. Now, look at today’s integrated classrooms, without TA’s, with far fewer field trips, and almost no supplies (and that’s a small list of differences). Yet, they can imagine, time manage and people manage better than any generation before.
Third, look at their families. The divorce rate went how high? Extra curricular programs and parental involvement (PTA, etc.) went how low?
Blaming them for being dumb is like a creator insulting his own work. If they are dumb (and I don’t think they are, they just know different things and have little experience), whose fault is it? Perhaps it’s the generation who created them?
October 10th, 2008 at 10:42 am
Anyone here old enough to remember the joke “Hey Mom, did you know that Paul McCartney was in a group before Wings?”?. Today my children and their peers have no particular acquaintance with Wings, but can name a Beatles song in 2 notes. As with any era, trivial knowledge will fade and at least some of the important stuff will endure.
October 10th, 2008 at 10:59 am
People need good teachers. This is true for every generation. If we suppose the absence of educators or parents who help create good habits for some Millennials, then “F reading” and the like show they’re doing their best with what they have.
Born just before the so-called Millennials, I teach them as a college instructor, and think the pejorative “Dumbest Generation” very unfair, and another in a long line of crotchety “oh those kids!” complaints that will always be with us.
October 12th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Every time a new generation rolls around and starts entering the work force ARROGANT and IGNORANT members of the older generations start spewing their dreck about how the new generation is bad.
Some even write articles, books, etc. trying to capitalize on the generational hatred.
It must be better than facing up to the fact that they’re OLD and getting older.
But wallowing in stupidity and irrelevance is no solution for the old folks.
October 13th, 2008 at 1:06 am
I read the first few lines of this post and then skipped to the conclusion. Seems like the author is just insulting millenials. We r smart d00d, u will see!!!!!11! We will be ur boss in a few years!!!!1
November 27th, 2008 at 10:38 am
As with any generation, there is a distribution of intelligence. I teach a very select group of graduate students and I think they are way smarter, better prepared and more worldly than my generation was. They have unlimited access to information and know how to get it. Where they fall down a bit is historical context but that will come as they mature. Of course, this is a select group, not the generation as a whole. You can’t have leaders without followers.
December 8th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
“I read the first few lines of this post and then skipped to the conclusion. Seems like the author is just insulting millenials. We r smart d00d, u will see!!!!!11! We will be ur boss in a few years!!!!1″
^^ I hope that’s a joke. Because basically that is my impression of kids 16 to 22. I haven’t seen any empirical evidence to suggest otherwise.
December 30th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I am a 22-year-old bibliophile and I’m afraid I am going to have to agree with Bauerlein. The most appalling workers I deal with are the ones who come to work with with their laptops so that they can check their MySpace or Facebook pages, and text on their cellphones while they are supposed to be working. They are not opening themselves up to a world of fascinating and useful information provided by some well-designed sites on the web, all I ever see them doing is gawking at YouTube videos and engaging in YouTube arguments (at the library!) Their tastes are NOT more diversified, if the tunes cranked out on the radio stations they listen to are any indication. They do NOT have basic knowledge of simple historical, geographical or even current affairs facts, and they are an excellent bit of proof that people who possess no interest in the world around or before them are undoubtedly CLOSE-MINDED. I should also
mention that many of our Founding Fathers from centuries ago possessed incredibly well-informed minds and a genuine thirst for knowledge that is severely lacking in
these crummy days of self-absorption and redundance.