Summary:
In PBS’s Digital Nation segment “The Dumbest Generation?” the main topic is because of technological advancements and media multitasking are we as academically capable as a generation as we once were? The segment completed research at MIT, backing up profession claims with actual student interactions and interviews. Media multitasking results in the current generation losing sufficiency of reading and more specifically writing. In terms of MIT essays, students admitted that they wrote in a more paragraph form because of media multitasking: they couldn’t remain on one essay without becoming distracted. Other students stated that they “never read anymore” especially with such inventions as Sparknotes.com where you can read a book in “5 minutes”. Mark Bauerlein wrote a book titled The Dumbest Generation, which argues that the current generation is just that. As more media exposure is increased, academic success in comparison to past generations decreases. Other professionals argue however, the distraction is the “price of gain” and question whether books are the best method to use today? For example, Mark Prensky a founder and CEO of Games2Train (a site based on corporate training with a game-based learning approach) believes that the verbs such as communicate read and write remain the same, but the nouns must change in order to adapt to our surroundings, and that learning ultimately stays the same. The segment ends with none other than Professor Henry Jenkins (Convergence Culture) who states that this issue has been an existing problem that we’ve already began to survive, and we need to go into the future open-minded and ready to adapt.
Inquiry:
This segment connects well with the Generation M Kaiser Family Foundation-it’s a more current analysis supporting Kaiser’s research that as media exposure increases, academic progress decreases. I felt that the segment documented many different opinions in an overall unbiased way, which added to the importance of the topic. I know that personally, I do write in paragraphs most of the time when writing essays, and that is influenced mainly by the numerous distractions on my computer via Internet. I also think that the critique on books can be related back to Robert Coover’s analysis on the end of the print medium. I found Jenkins’ comment interesting-why should we have to adapt to a movement that we are initiating? And if the population is too incapable to address the initiation of the media exposure, it should not be sitting on the sidelines upset with our childrens’ academic capabilities. Yet, I do realize that at this point in time our generation has become largely reliable on technology and this would be difficult to change, therefore adaption is necessary. Did you watch “The Dumbest Generation” and if so do you agree with the claims made by the numerous professionals? Do you feel that you are less academically capable because of your media influences? And what is your proposed idea of how to approach the future?
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