The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein
The Dumbest Generation, Mark Bauerlein
List: $17.99 | Sale: $12.59
Club: $8.99

The Dumbest Generation
How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don't Trust Anyone Under 30)

Author: Mark Bauerlein

Narrator: Danny Campbell

Unabridged: 9 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 06/08/2011


Synopsis

Let's take stock of young America. Compared to previous generations, American youth have more schooling (college enrollments have never been higher); more money ($100 a week in disposable income); more leisure time (five hours a day); and more news and information (Internet, The Daily Show, RSS feeds).

What do they do with all that time and money? They download, upload, IM, post, chat, and network. (Nine of their top ten sites are for social networking.) They watch television and play video games (2 to 4 hours per day).

And here is what they don't do: They don't read, even online (two thirds aren't proficient in reading); they don't follow politics (most can't name their mayor, governor, or senator); they don't maintain a brisk work ethic (just ask employers); and they don't vote regularly (45 percent can't comprehend a ballot).

They are the dumbest generation. They enjoy all the advantages of a prosperous, high-tech society. Digital technology has fabulously empowered them, loosened the hold of elders. Yet adolescents use these tools to wrap themselves in a generational cocoon filled with puerile banter and coarse images. The founts of knowledge are everywhere, but the rising generation camps in the desert, exchanging stories, pictures, tunes, and texts, savoring the thrill of peer attention. If they don't change, they will be remembered as fortunate ones who were unworthy of the privileges they inherited. They may even be the generation that lost that great American heritage, forever.

About Mark Bauerlein

Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University and has worked as a director of research and analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, where he oversaw studies about culture and American life. His writing has appeared in many publications and scholarly periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Mark lives with his family in Atlanta.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Seamus on June 17, 2012

Synopsis: Kids these days...playing around with their ipods and updating their myspace pages all day. When I was their age I was reading The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom...it made a big impression on me as I've rehashed more or less the whole book here. I used to listen to Jazz when I wa......more

Goodreads review by Darcy on January 27, 2014

I would recommend this book to anyone, but it is especially relevant for educators in the liberal arts. Bauerlein makes ample use (sometimes overuse) of statistical data to prove his points, but I was more convinced by the fact that he confirmed much of what I have observed in my capacity as a teach......more

Goodreads review by Mike (the Paladin) on January 17, 2017

I'm of the generation who's members (not me personally by the way) were noted for saying, "don't trust anyone over 30". It seems that that may have flipped to "don't trust anyone under 30". From Jay Leno's "Jay Walking" to general scholarship and willingness to think this is an interesting book. Try......more

Goodreads review by Daniel on September 29, 2009

I was excited to read this book because I thought it would supplement my own personal theory about human development and the underbelly of technological advance. However, it did so only slightly. It postulates that kids these days are more likely to go to their rooms and watch YouTube videos than re......more

Goodreads review by Mitzi on June 23, 2011

Baurlein is an intellectual snob who is still mad at the hippies. He quotes multiple research studies that show young people to be scarily deficient in knowledge, but one of them is Jaywalking from the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. One of his assumptions seems to be that people learn everything they e......more