Summary Of Mark Bauerlain The Dumbest Generation

Mark Bauerlain, in his book The Dumbest Generation, claims that the current under thirty generation is the “dumbest” in modern history, citing the fact that they “don’t know anything” (Bauerlain). Yet the under thirty generation has revolutionized social and linguistic conventions at a rate unmatched by all save for the Ancient Greeks, have grown up in an intelligence-centered culture, and, older people have been complaining about the ‘shortcomings’ of the younger generations for centuries. The facts don’t support Bauerlain - his claims that young people are “dumber” are completely unfounded and radiate an aura of elderly bitterness.
Millenials are in the midst of transforming society and language at a breakneck pace, “the likes of which haven’t been seen since Greek civilization” (Clive). Young people “write far more than any generation before”, and have created “new forms of expression and rules for social behavior” (Ito, Clive). This new linguistic culture, based primarily on the internet, evolves at such a pace that adults can’t keep up. Memes, a central component of internet humor, have a relevance period of about a month. By the time the mainstream media discovers a
Video games “challenge mental dexterity”, and The Sims, the best selling game franchise of all time, “involves almost no hand-eye coordination or quick reflexes” (Johnson). The culture that the younger generation lives in favors intellect more than most else, proven most strongly by a data set from the National Center for Education Statistics, which found that 13% of high school seniors had a rigorous course schedule and an average of 27.2 credits in 2009, as opposed to the 5% of high school seniors with a rigorous course schedule and an average of only 23.6 credits in