Analysis: The Dumbest Generation

“The Dumbest Generation” is a title no group of people want to behold. Nonetheless, people under age thirty have been given this belittling title. To those who go off questions about obsolete general knowledge rather than the ability to take in and evaluate knowledge, this title may seem quite fitting. However, Millennials aren’t quite as dull as they’ve been perceived to be. The ability of Millennials to absorb information, rather than know general facts, and their use of contemporary technology as reading and writing resources has proven that they are quite an innovative and bright generation. Perhaps the thought that Millennials are reading less has added to the overall idea that they’re the dumbest generation. Yet, this faulty idea causes

It’s possible that Millennials may not be the brightest on certain facts as discussed by R. Smith Simpson in Are We Getting Our Share of the Best? Yet, neither is the rest of the country, shown when Simpson says, “Americans abroad are asked a great many questions about their country... A good half of our candidates could answer such questions with only the thinnest recital of facts; many could not discuss them at all”. This proves that all of Americans (not just Millennials) couldn’t answer certain questions, making it wrong to undermine Millennials by titling them as the dumbest generation. Another reason this title would be incorrect is because of the fact that Millennials’ thinking capacity is actually expanding. According to Sharon Begley in The Dumbest Generation? Don’t Be Dumb, “IQ scores in every country... have risen since the 1930s... the tests measure not knowledge but pure thinking capacity... then Gen Y’s [(Millennials)] ignorance of facts (or the facts that older people believe are important) reflects not dumbness but choice.” Therefore, if younger people and older people are the same in recalling facts about their country, but Millennials’ IQ scores are rising how could they be “the dumbest generation”? Overall, the thinking capacity, amount of writing, and intake of information by Millennials has increased. If these factors add up to whether they are dumb or not, this young group of people certainly