What Is The Dumbest Generation

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There are many different generations currently living in the word today thanks to the advances in medicine and technology to help prolong the lives of the individuals. While this may seem like a good idea, it causes conflict between the generations. The older generations keep proclaiming that they are smarter than the young ones these days. They thoroughly believe that with each passing year the youth of the world get dumber and dumber. If this is the case, then what would be the cause? It would be the ineffectiveness of the older generation at teaching the younger generations. So, who really is the dumbest generation? The answer is it is not either generation; the older generation needs to understand that. While the older generation may …show more content…

What the older generations refuse to admit is that it makes life easier. The internet has databases that have access to resources that make research quicker (Carr). The “[r]esearch that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes (Carr).” The older generation should learn just because our generation does not spend hours working on a project does not make it any less influential. Because of the internet, people are writing more than ever before (Thompson). People these days write more than any other generation before ours according to the writings of Clive Thompson, a writer for Wired, which is a technology magazine. In a study done by Andrea Lundsford -- a professor of writing at Stanford University -- it was discovered that out of all of the writing her students did, 38% of it did not happen in the classroom, but rather in the students’ daily lives (Thompson). Whether the writing was on a blog, in a text, or even creating a tweet, the influx of the internet has been improving this generation's writing -- bringing it back to the “ ...Greek tradition of argument than the asynchronous letter and essay writing of 50 years ago …show more content…

The change from a generation that was required to memorize to a generation that can focus more on personalised subjects may have caused the confusion. These new forms of communication and information that actually let the younger generation become knowledgeable in certain fields and some of that knowledge could even surpass the adult’s knowledge in the same field (Ito). While the older generation knew to respect their elders and conform to society, the influence of all that the newer generation has to offer has a great impact on the lives of the newer generation by giving them the opportunity to learn from each other. They respect and gain knowledge from their peers when there is not an adult who is experienced in certain fields in their areas of interest (Ito). Likewise, the older generation is the one that defined the classroom setting and while they may think they know what is best to help the children learn, their ways may be outdated. The youth of today have a different goal than the youth of the past. In a study done in 2008 study of the effects of media on the new generation, they discovered that youth are more motivated if they learn from their peers and “[the youth’s] efforts are also largely self-directed, and the outcome emerges through exploration, in contrast to classroom learning that is oriented

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