Is tech making our youth dumber?

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Another link. I bolded the bit that stuck out at me.

http://www.ecnmag.com/blogs/2014/08/tech...p;type=headline

Quote:
I have little 2-3 year-old cousins that have the ability to use and comfortably navigate their way around a smart phone or a tablet. It is incredible to see how technology that takes older adults a longtime to figure out comes so natural to them. Just witnessing how much things have changed since I was younger is mind-blowing. But is all of this change having beneficial effects on the youth growing up in this fast paced culture?

When I was a little kid, my mom tried her best to manage my television viewing. That was in the late ‘90s. In the year 2014, television is the least of most parent’s worries. From a young age, children are exposed to a plethora of different technologies. Most times these type of technologies catch flak because kids would much rather use their electronic devices instead of reading a book or magazine. So adults immediately see the devices in a negative way just because of their unfamiliarity.

Wired.com reports, “The brains our children are born with are not substantively different from the brains our ancestors had 40,000 years ago. But almost from day one, the allotment of neurons in those brains (and therefore the way they function) is different today from the way it was even one generation ago. Every second of your lived experience represents new connections among the roughly 86 billion neurons packed inside your brain. Children, then, can become literally incapable of thinking and feeling the way their grandparents did. A slower, less harried way of thinking may be on the verge of extinction.”

So for parents to expect that children born in such a vast technological era are going to be the same way they did is unfair and unrealistic. It does not only have to do with time period, but can include culture and demographic. Children that are raised in third-world countries are definitely going to think differently than a child that is born in more of an advanced society. I won’t argue that technology is absolutely changing the way we think. However, change shouldn’t always have a negative connotation.

Author, Nicholas Carr says, “After enough time in front of our screens, we learn to absorb more information less effectively, skip the bottom half of paragraphs, shift focus constantly; “the brighter the software, the dimmer the user,” he suggests at one point.” This viewpoint is simply opinion. Tech has taken away the long research processes of old, and has given us sites like google, and other amazing databases that give us the answers to billions of questions in seconds. Efficiency is progress, not weakness.

The speed and growth of technology is not the problem, nor is it damaging the brains of the youth. Children are able to catch on fast because from the day they are born it is all they know. Some adults have to adapt and try their best to realize that they were raised in a different time where these types of technologies weren’t available. This isn’t a reason to punish or judge today’s youth, it should create an opportunity to learn from them.
 
not "dumber" but lazy, less respectful and more disengaged in the world around them.
 
You got all you could out of that title. I didn't see the the article mention anything like that. Of course kids of different generations and locations think differently. Focusing on teaching kids how to take down a bison with a spear in 2014 would be pretty useless.
 
The article used that as a title, presumably as a hook; I didn't think about not copying it. Sorry.
 
Dummer?lol.it might seem this way but it isn't .want an example?go see a teen play wow.normal setting is 2 screen etc.if you were to see what kids pay attention to .in real time.you would be baffled .so what is the cause of their slowness.elsewhere .(say at a job?most of the time it is the employers fault .if he or she WS to ask a gamer view on things .he might need to shuffle a thing or two.a computer gamer or other computer user can do a lot of stuff at once .so just because said person is on PC doing his or her job it doesn't mean he or she isn't listening to the 2 or 3 other thing around.he or she probably has alarm of different sound on various device or different vibration etc.like I say .on a single menial job .say hitting a bolt .that person will be bad and bored .but in a multitasking environment where 10 thing happen at the same time and letting them mod the way stuff happen so they can manage it?don't sweat it .only another gamer or hardcore PC user can keep up.a guy online was banned from pokerstar.net.why?because he was playing 24 poker table at the same time and just played for average plus his fee.he won a lot of money.
 
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Quote:
However, change shouldn’t always have a negative connotation.


This is what stuck out at me.


+1

I believe if children are in front of tech too often than they lose out on learning about other things but I think alot of claims are exaggerated about the negative impact it has. The reality is, that the job market today requires you to have a high level of technical know how and that sometimes drives the motivation behind technology. Children are not adults and should be treated as such and limited on technology so they spend time outside or being social.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted By: wsar10
not "dumber" but lazy, less respectful and more disengaged in the world around them.

This.
 
Originally Posted By: lugNutz
Originally Posted By: wsar10
not "dumber" but lazy, less respectful and more disengaged in the world around them.

This.



That was also said 40-50 years ago.
 
Originally Posted By: expat
Originally Posted By: lugNutz
Originally Posted By: wsar10
not "dumber" but lazy, less respectful and more disengaged in the world around them.

This.



That was also said 40-50 years ago.


I think the technology of today's generation is far different from what was around 40-50 years ago. TVs and radios helped the world become more connected, but they didn't stop people from interacting with each other. Smart phones distract people to the point where they can't even do other functions. I've never seen someone listening to a radio not check the street for traffic before crossing, yet I see it every day with smart phones. The videos of people falling in fountains at the mall or tripping because they aren't paying attention are proof of this.

Is tech making youth dumb? Well, that all depends on what your idea of dumb is. Kids of today are involved way more with technology than any other generation. Some schools are implementing the use of iPads as teaching tools. I believe the level of intelligence of people this age is still very high, if not a little higher than previous generations due to the availability of information. You can search Google for anything and learn about it.

I do believe that technology has severely impacted younger generations in decision making, common sense, and overall independence though. People can't park without cameras, can't avoid running into things because they are texting, and I find many people my age can't read a map to save their life.
 
Originally Posted By: expat
Originally Posted By: lugNutz
Originally Posted By: wsar10
not "dumber" but lazy, less respectful and more disengaged in the world around them.

This.



That was also said 40-50 years ago.


EXACTLY and look at the shape our nation is in..... I would be inclined to say "they" were correct !
 
I feel the use of technology is causing kids to be more technology dependent. Nothing wrong with knowing how to use the stuff, but you have to know basics without technology first.

My neighbor told me this when I was complaining about an old school drafting class I had to take my freshman year: In order for you to know how to run a backhoe, you need to be able to use a shovel first.
 
I think it's spelled, "dummer." I also think you're totally wrong, but hold on, let me Google a good rebuttal right quick!
 
My only qualm is decision making is significantly less.

It is too easy to ask a parent for help or anyone else so self reliance is significantly less. Parents would not think of sending a teen now to college without a smartphone or cell that they can text.

I personally did not talk to my parents (it was pricey) much in college. Maybe 1-2 times per month that is it.
 
Originally Posted By: rjundi
My only qualm is decision making is significantly less.

It is too easy to ask a parent for help or anyone else so self reliance is significantly less.


I think there is some truth in that, or at least I see that in myself. Whenever I come up with a question that I can't immediately answer on my own (is this tire better than that tire? how do I integrate this function?) I google it. And then if it is something subjective I get lost in the various opinions and avoid making a decision of my own. Whereas in my youth I'd just make a decision w/o too much research. Maybe that's partly from the arrogance of youth, but there have been studies about how people find it harder to make decisions when presented with multiple good ones. [Don't remember the source for that, but I know I saw it on the web!]
 
“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

-Socrates
 
The more education I get, the DUMBER I become LOLZ People today rely upon becoming self-taught through technology. The days of independent thinking are gone.
 
I always enjoy the irony when a topic like this comes up on this board, and we spend hours/days talking to people we haven't met, via an online discussion forum, about how much we lament "technology" in our lives, as if that "technology" isn't responsible for this very form of communication.
smile.gif


It's like a bunch of milk cows eating grass in a protected pasture talking about how much better it was when they roamed free and died of thirst and starvation.
 
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