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Meghan Jones

College Comp 2: Paper One

Reynolds

15 February 2011

The Dumbest Generation

During the introduction of Mark Bauerlein’s book “The Dumbest Generation,” people

would assume that he is a fan and is almost praising the “Millennial” generation. Talking about

the SAT score of a student that retook it just to get a perfect score of 1600, the student had

“only” received a 1570 the first time, also talking about the busy schedules of many students,

who strive for the best grades possible while managing an almost impossible schedule. In an

article printed in the Christian Science monitor is says, “Though plenty of adults grumble about

e-mail and instant-messaging (IM), and the text messages that send adolescent thumbs dancing

across cell phone keypads, many experts insist that teenage composition is as strong as ever - and

that the proliferation of writing, in all its harried, hasty forms, has actually created a generation

more adept with the written word.” This means a lots, even though we aren’t being taught and

learning everything the same way as the people before us, that does not mean we are not going to

be as successful or not learn as much, in fact we might learn and take in more and also learn the

skills that are actually going to help us in life, not just the stuff we can look up so easily on

google. But suddenly his tone seems to change, he states, “Just get the grades, they tell

themselves, ace the test, study, study, study. Assignments become exercises to complete, like

doing the dishes, not knowledge to acquire for the rest of their lives” (Bauerlein 3). Still

Bauerlein is making valid points, it is the truth we do homework just to get it done and spend
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little time on it, usually procrastinating until the last minute, and many spend 2 or more hours

sitting in front of the television every day, and do not spend as much time reading books. Three

pages into the article and I’m still sitting in my desk reading this article nodding my head,

thinking “Yes! This guy understands and respects us.” He gets that we are busy, multitask like

champs, and we’re just trying to just slide by in school with good enough grades to get into our

college of choice. But the thing he does not talk about in the introduction, or even talk about at

all as his book goes on is the things our generation has strived at. He talks about our lack of read

books and since we aren’t reading books we aren’t reading at all but I read every day. From text

messages about assignments due for the next day of class; to emails about the assignments that

are posted on the internet for the upcoming week. By the end of the introduction Bauerlein

states, “The more they attend to themselves, the less they remember the past and envision the

future.”

Then he hits you with chapter one, which left me speechless. He states, “the ignorance is

hard to believe” (Bauerlein, 12), referring to the Millennial generation because they didn’t know

the answers to a few questions asked to questions ask on a segment of Jay Lenos’s show called

“Jay Walking”. I would be willing to bet Mark Bauerlein and the majority of the people in his

generation wouldn’t know who created facebook, how to set up twitter through their phone, or

how to upload a video to YouTube, like most of the people of the millennial know/are perfectly

capable of doing. I would also be willing to bet that random people of Bauerleins generation

stopped on the street during the “Jay Walking” segment would mess up the answers once and

awhile as well. “Here lies the etiology of the dumbest generation—not in school or at work but

in their games, their socializing, and their spending. It begins with a strange and spreading

phobia,” that is the closing statement in chapter one, making my jaw drop to the ground. Sitting
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in the classroom in complete shock, how is this even possible? There are many things people of

my generation are capable of that our previous generations are not able to do. For example my

mom doesn’t know the difference between a SMS text message and a MMS text message, my

grandmother has never heard of twitter (so obviously she would not know how to tweet, or set it

up through her cell phone), and one of my teachers thinks every time you would like to get to

your home page you have to exit our of the internet and then start it up again. Those are just a

few examples that came up in my life today that I could think of off the top of my head but there

are many more I could list. Bauerlein wants us to be more like them but where would I be if I

couldn’t navigate the web, send a text message, or use twitter? But saying that, the percent of

teens who use twitter is very low, according to an article published in the Washington Post,

“According to a new report released Wednesday, only 8 percent of online teens have embraced

Twitter,” I would be on the outs of the social circle and I also would not be growing in the new

technologies the world has to offer. An article published in USA today states, “This generation

may be technologically savvier than their bosses, but will they be able to have a professional

discussion?” I would have to say yes, we will be able to have professional discussion, right now

we are teenagers who are just busy and in love with the social aspect of life. We are still kids as

they used to be, we are still growing up and learning. When our time comes to be in a formal

business meeting and to have a professional discussion we will be prepared.

In chapter two Bauerlein describes what he calls a “Strange and spreading phobia,” it all

has to do with reading. He claims that the millennial generation does not read enough, some not

even reading at all, “Knowing the names and ranks of politicians gets her nowhere in her social

setting, and reading a book about the Roman Empire earns nothing but tease,” this is nothing but

true. Those are facts that go in one ear and out the other; also those facts are definitely not
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something the average teenager/young adult would bring up in a conversation with friends. The

article goes on to say “To prospering the hard-and-fast cliques in the schoolyard, the fraternities,

and the food court, teens and 20-year-olds must track the latest films, fads, gadgets, YouTube

Videos, and television shows” (Bauerlein, 42). I couldn’t agree with this more, where is being

aware of the ranks of politicians going to get me? Maybe, just maybe, it will help me answer

one question in some type of government class, but the odds of that are slim, who knows if it

would even be brought up. But by watching YouTube I can check out the last video release my

Ke$ha which everyone will be chatting about in the hallways the next day, or catching up on a

missed episode of Jersey Shore. Jersey Shore and Ke$ha are definitely brought up more in

conversations among teenagers and 20-year-olds than the ranks of politicians ever will be. He

also states, “To know a little more about popular music and mall, to sport the right fashions and

host a teen blog, is a matter of survival” (Bauerlein, 43). The millennial generation may not read

the information that the author would like to see us reading but we read every day, from the

littlest things like a text message and wall post on our walls to emails for our teachers and

reading a book on our laptops. We aren’t reading in the sense that we are sitting down with a

paper book in our hands but we are reading and connected to our world and surrounding at all

times.

Next Bauerlein moves onto chapter three titled, Screen Time, in this chapter he writes

about all the electronics we have now a days. We are brought up in this digital age though and

he even backs that up in his book saying, “While father fights the traffic, mother must prepare

dinner, and so she sets their two-year-old on the living room carpet and starts a Sesame Street

video that the child soaks up agreeably for 30 minutes” (Bauerlein, 75). If you are taught from

the age of two years old that there is nothing wrong with sitting in front of the television for 30
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minutes to an hour at the time, you are not going to change this as you grow up. Your TV time

will most likely increase as you get older because you will be more aware of what shows are on

and you will have control over what and when you will be watching. Laptops are also brought

up in the chapter talking about the apple store and how it is jam packed with teenagers on the

weekends. Apple was, and still is, a company that has attracted teens. Every teenager wanting

an Apple laptop and an iPod, which most teenagers end up finding the money to buy, but is that

wrong? Many teenagers balance school and work so they can afford the extra little things they

want, which for many people of the millennial generation is anything electronic.

Then chapter four hits, breaking down and getting to his point even more, “They play

complex video games and hit the social networking sites for hours, the educators said, but they

don’t always cite pertinent sources and compose original responses to complete class

assignments” (Bauerlein, 113). This statement, just like Bauerlein’s other statements cannot be

completely denied because there has been truth behind all of them, just the truth seems to be

stretched or over exaggerated. About this statement just stated, personally I know that is what I

do, as I have facebook and twitter open in a window behind Microsoft, and I have been checking

it about every five to ten minutes, also I have a cell phone sitting on my bed right next to me.

But that does not mean I am not getting my work done, I will still finish and hand this paper in

on time, I already finished my economic project while I had a break between classes, and I

worked, went to a hockey game, and worked out on top of getting my homework done. Maybe

our generation just knows how to manage our time to get the absolute most out of it, rather than

getting one thing done at a time. Truth be told in a facebook “like” that I just read which states,

“Even if I was home alone for six hours, my television didn’t work, computer was broken, phone

wasn’t charged and I lost the charger... I STILL wouldn't do my homework!” That is completely
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true; I would not do my homework even if I didn’t have any of those things. I would go to one

of my friend’s houses, out for a run, or do chores around the house for some extra cash;

homework is always the last thing on my mind because over the years I have figured out how to

do my homework fast and effectively, while still managing to have a social life. One of the best

things Bauerlein says in chapter four, which I don’t think is a bad thing, yet he does states, “The

part-time job tires them and the classroom irks them to death, but the blogs, games, shows,

videos, music, messages, updates, phone call. . . they mirror their woes and fantasies” (Bauerlein,

137). That is the truth but it is not something to look down at a generation for as Bauerlein does,

it is the generation growing and adapting to what is around them.

In the four chapters out of Bauerlein’s book that I had read for my College Composition

Two class, I was glad that I didn’t have to continue reading the book. We finished the four

chapters, which were very hard to read, not because of the reading level, but because of the fact

that he only had negative things to say about the generation of millennial, nothing was positive.

It’s hard to read something that doesn’t interest you, which Bauerlein considers a problem, but

I’m sure he would rather read something fun and entertaining rather than something boring and

not important. It’s the same with everyone. Through reading the first part of his book I realized

how every generation is going to find something wrong with the generation to follow because

even my parents say some of the things as Bauerlein, not to the same extent but still in some

ways it is similar. So I am sure that it is just a generation to generation and I would be willing to

bet that the people in the generation to follow mine will receive the same kind of thoughts from

my generation as we receive from the generations before us.

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Works Cited

Barker, Olivia. “Technology Leaves Teens Speechless.” USA Today. 9 May 2006. Web. 14

Feb. 2011. <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techinnovations/2006-05-29- teen-

texting_x.htm>

Bauerlein, Mark. The Dumbest Generation. 2008

McCarroll, Christina. “Teens ready to prove text-messaging skills can score SAT points.”

Christian Science Monitor. 11 March 2005. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.

<http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0311/p01s02-ussc.html>

St. George, Donna. “Twitter not all that popular amoung teenagers.” Washington Post. 3 Feb.

2010. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.