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Are kids getting stupider?


Philosophy Pony

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I read a few articles online, as well as hearing from some parents, that claim that today's adolescents are descending into a void of decaying intelligence. That "Kids are lacking literacy skills and well rounded comprehension for varying fields of knowledge". But is that really the case? If so, this is something that we should all worry about, since children are the future, and blah blah blah blah.

 

But we do put a lot of money into education. And we have also have come to some conclusions that point to flaws in these systems, regardless of how much money we put forward. But from my own perspective, I think we are looking at this all wrong.

 

Now as ironic as it can be, I do not seem at all up to the task of discussing this, as I am slightly drunk and sad. But everything on my mind now should be typed out before it get's lost in the pit of my own memories. But either way, I will attempt to make my comments quick and hopefully give some perspective. But please please please try to argue against my points, so that clarification can be a priority.

 

Any who, back to the topic at hand. We can all safely agree that the age we live in now is the age of information. The aforementioned claim of intellectual decay seems to stem from the "distractions" of the modern world, such as smartphones, tablets, and faster processing desktops and computers and what have you. But are they really distractions? Well it all depends on there usage.

 

Thanks to the internet, we can access so much more knowledge about the world then ever before. But some of this knowledge is what we can call "junk info" and other knowledge "valuable info".

 

Junk info could be something like

 

"Justin Bieber Apologizes to Former President Bill Clinton After Cursing Him"

 

 

And Valuable info could be something like

 

"Inter species Transplant Works in First Step for New Diabetes Therapy"

 

 

 

And that's just news. We can also consider social information as relatively junk information because it has little to do with the real world and only effect small numbers of individuals. Other valuable information could come in the form of studies and observations already done before hand and can provide countless amounts of people with the same objective facts.

 

What we need to do, and I'm not talking about educators or parents/ guardians or anyone like that, what we the adolescents need to do, is orient our "distraction" tools like our phones and desktops and turn them into "Valuable information" tools. Programs like Garageband and iTunes University, educational apps and software, brain training software, puzzle games like Sudoku reading snipits of e books, and so many other things can be tried out to further understand the world and perfect mental efficiency. Being in the age of information, we can choose to be smart, successful people, or we can just forget about it and spend the rest of out lives wondering where it all went wrong.

 

So are kids getting dumber? the answer is no. They are getting smarter, just having a little trouble accessing the proper information.

 

 

 

 

*the title is suppose to be that way. It's my kind of stupid humor aha

  • Brohoof 1

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Darn you... if you hadn't put that at the bottom, I would have had to have a word with you >:C

*But +1 for the joke. :P

  • Brohoof 1
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Multiple dictionaries have declared "stupider" and "stupidest" to be proper English.

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I think the real problem with most students these days is that they're not taught critical thinking adequately. I'm from that generation as well. We are only taught to absorb information without considering what it really means. What is valuable information? You mention studies and observations. What if they were flawed? What if you were absorbing wrong information all this time and were deceived? That's even worse information than hearing about Justin Bieber. 

 

With that in mind, students should learn how to ask questions about "valuable" information, understand what it's arguing, and then make sure with little doubt that it's legitimate information. Is the information sound? What would weaken the information's strength? Questions like that.

 

EDIT: Forgot to mention. Kids often find this valuable information worthless because they can't see how it's applied to their lives. If the students are also taught to ask, "what does this mean for me?" with a positive attitude, then they can better appreciate valuable information.

  • Brohoof 1
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Aha! @SterlingCrimson 

You've made a very good point. Kids do need to be taught how to find valuable information on there own. There are some minor steps I've seen being taken into account, like further learning courses, but I still think that not all children and adolescents are getting the same skills transferred to them. 

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