Anna Walter’s Blog

In this post I would like to take a closer look at the first part of the interview, Mark Bauerlein is giving on his book “The Dumbest Generation”. He builds up his argumentation on the observation that media and especially sources like the internet, cell phones, i-pods and other new technologies gain more and more importance in adults’ lives. Actually Bauerlein perceives digital culture as a source of danger for America’s future, as he believes in teenagers abandoning reading books or going to museums and thus, as a consequence, become stupid and ignorant. He blames them in spending too much time with chatting and exchanging information via social networks instead of using the time more reasonably, like for instance, for the purpose of studying.

In my opinion Bauerlein makes an important observation which either corresponds to European adults. It is true that teenagers preferably spend their free time hanging up in chat rooms, playing video games or phoning their friends. And this tendency is rather natural, as friendship and social interaction ranks first, as long as no greater responsibilities have to be taken over. However I would agree with him in this aspect only.

What I would like to criticize about his statement is his narrow-mindedness about the young generation. He does not make any distinction between individuals who use the internet for research on certain topics and those who just need it to check their E-Mails and chat with other teens. In my opinion it is wrong to treat everybody as equal, because each person has his or her own character and hence individual attitudes towards life.

The second aspect which I would like to criticize is his claim about the youths’ lack of interest concerning books and museums. Bauerlein blames the media for their disinterest towards culture, but what about students’ apathy towards reading etc. in the past, before the internet came into being? I can hardly imagine that those adults who were interested in culture ten or fifteen years ago abruptly changed their opinions in favor of the internet. It is the same with those who did not like cultural events before the internet was invented. I am sure that they spent their time playing soccer or listening to music instead of going to museums or reading books. Why should they suddenly have changed their habits in favor of cultural events?

In addition Bauerlein states that teenagers lack creativity and new ideas because of hanging up in social networks. I would disagree with him, since among simple messages like “hello” and “bye bye”, both the ability to express one’s opinion on different topics and argumentation techniques can be practiced. These skills are quite important for students’ later careers, especially for those who plan to study or work in a concern there writing skills are required.

Taking all pros and cons into consideration, I can conclusively say that Bauerlein makes an important observation which however does not hold for everybody among the youths. As by now I do not have much background information and statistics on which media youths are foremost using, I hope that the PS “New Media in FL classroom” will reveal some facts about adults’ preferences concerning digital culture. This information might be very useful for my teacher career, for then I will be able to apply certain media for intended purposes and also show my students how it can be used more reasonably.