The Dumbest Generation, really?

So the point in question is this book, The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30).

http://tinyurl.com/ydovxev < can be purchased here from Amazon.com

The author has an interesting point and brings up a number of facts, but I have a serious argument to make, actually… Three.

First of all, skills required in today’s world differ greatly than those that existed in previous generations. There’s a level of ignorance that overshadows this and many people from yesteryear’s generation refuse to accept this change. Our society treasures the ability to read, write, and articulate things in every day life, but careful analysis of the business of social networking will show you that even those in the generation questioning our generation fall to these problems. Bad grammar isn’t solely found among generation X, in fact, in my experience, I find that it’s more problematic in older generations!

So back to the point of my first argument, the skills required in today’s generation are of computer literacy. Without literacy of today’s technology, one cannot enter the workforce of tomorrow. I think that we all can agree on that. Today we face problems like identity theft, which computer-literate people are not immune to, but more protected from it. You don’t need to know how to spell, as spell-check is available to you. Seriously, the amount of time wasted to just open up a dictionary could lose you several minutes of productivity and will throw you off task. Your next sentence might not even make the same sense or bear the same consistency had you not looked that word up for a simple spelling of. Today’s world doesn’t necessarily NEED the ability to spell in order to be successful. You need the ability to create a point and validate and justify it.

Second, the point about Social Networking. Social Networking is one of the fastest growing fields in the business industry. Utilizing it is free, fast, and you can get to a large audience for a minimal amount of time, especially with the creation of bots that will advertise for you. Anybody that’s taken a basic course in computer programming should know how to make their own, or you can just hire a student to do one for you for under $100, and you have a free advertising tool at your fingertips.

Particularly in my case, I don’t use sites such as Facebook (I do now - Dec. 23, 2009) and Myspace. I do have social networking, but I can justify my reasoning for each one. I use Twitter as a replacement for RSS feeds; I use Flickr since I don’t use Facebook to make photo galleries online; Last.FM is a great place to find new music, etc.

The older generation of people that I know are on such sites like Facebook more often than most of my friends. A certain family member, for example constantly informs me of family matters on Facebook that I could honestly care less about. This person is 51 years old, and I’m 24.

Last, I’m finding that older generations may claim to be supreme readers and such, but from observation alone, I found that most people older than me are too tired from daily work to read, or at least that’s what they claim. When they do read, it’s typically “Pharmacy literature” and has little stimulation to the brain. They also watch more TV than most people I know that are my age. In fact, most of my friends don’t own a television, or if they do the only thing connected to it is a VCR or DVD player (Or Blu-Ray for you high-techies).

I conclude this by saying, “Hey, old people, accept the change. Our necessary skills for life are vastly different than yours, so just accept it already!”