Are we the dumbest generation | Teen Ink

Are we the dumbest generation

May 25, 2011

“Second graders who can’t tie their shoes or zip jackets. Four-year-olds in Pull-Ups diapers. Five-year-olds in strollers. Teens and preteens befuddled by can openers and ice-cube trays. College kids who have never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope”. This is what someone said in one of the articles I read. If this is really true, the only thing you can do is shake your head and walk away. These kind of things makes you wonder, are we really what people say we are…”the dumbest generation”. If by now you have never done laundry, don’t know how to work a can opener or ice cube trays, or don’t know how to address an envelope, then you should really look into knowing how to do that, like right now. If you are saying this does not relate to me, it never has or never will then maybe you should consider my next statement. In this generation preteens and teens are so caught up in text messages, IM’s, game systems and computers that we don’t care enough to learn something new. So is it the technology that’s affecting our thinking? Think about it, if you have a word that you had to look up would you grab an actual dictionary or a computer? Of course you would grab the computer without even thinking about it, but if you grab the dictionary you will stumble across other words that you never even knew existed, therefore increasing your vocabulary. It seems that technology has taken away our want to be productive. For example, you would rather log onto Facebook than actually spend time on your homework, or that project that you have to finish, or read a book.
After you have gotten used to technology like the computer you don’t want to go back to actually looking it up in a book because you are used to the computer doing it for you. Everyone has been lazy in their life which is normal, but when we let our modern tools keeping us from growing and learning we have to reconsider what we are doing. I’ve seen people that are too lazy to bend down and get the pencil that they have dropped. Now if that isn’t lazy then what is?

Some people are too lazy to even want to get a good education for themselves. They rather just stay home and watch that same old SpongeBob episode they gave seen a hundred times instead of going to school and getting an education for themselves.
Also, laziness can cause childhood obesity. If you sit on the couch all weekend eating junk food rather than going outside and playing a sport or playing with your friend or even ride your bike then it is very likely you will become … chubby. Also all that technology makes us lazier since we can pretty much do everything we need with a push of a button. If we can do that then you may say what is the point of actually having to get up off of the couch and have to do it manually? This is ridding us of valuable information we could use. For example what if you power shut down in your area and you could not use your computer at all. Or what if you only had one computer and you broke it. Then what? You don’t know how to actually get yourself up and do it yourself.
Overall, in my opinion, we are the dumbest generation out of all the previous generations. It may be because of technology. It may be because we are lazy. It may even be because we just don’t know any better. But we do need to fix that name our world has given us. After all knowledge is power right?


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This article has 3 comments.


Romney&Ryan said...
on Sep. 12 2012 at 5:34 pm
I do agree with the author in some areas, because there are some kids that aren't as smart as they should be cause of technology. And  I think that it is because their parent don't care what their kids do with their lives. But not all kids are like that, and they want to learn new things, and thats where I disagree with the author.

jwhitney said...
on Sep. 4 2012 at 6:00 pm
I agree with the points made here, but there is a definite difference between laziness and intelligence. We could potentially be the most intelligent generation yet with all of the information available to us. However, because the information is so easy to acquire, a lot of people are too lazy to retain it. So, our problem is not that we are dumb, but that we are too lazy to be smart. 

on Jan. 26 2012 at 8:33 am
Me22895 DIAMOND, Azle, Texas
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Favorite Quote:
If nothing ever changed, there would be no butterflies.

I do use dictionaries to look up words, and maybe I'm just not your stereotypical 16 year old, but I go straight to the word I'm looking for and do not learn any other words on that page... How's that different from google, besides more dead trees?