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Do You Think Its True That The Current Generation is Tech Savvy but Knowledge Poor?


GAROVORKIN

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That media (per se, not actual information providers) are not neutral was claimed by many, including Neil Postman about 40 years ago. Because some doomsayers were wrong in some details or had exaggerated their point (virtually everyone does that) does not prove that they are completely wrong.

 More recent research:

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/has-the-smartphone-destroyed-a-generation/534198/

And the analogy with "self-immolating books" is obviously misleading. If there was a flash and we would be back in 1990 almost nothing would really change in everday life (there would be cars, planes, trains, TV, radio, CDs, movies, books, most other pleasant things of late 20th century civilization) except everything internet based. So there is obviously a huge infrastructure we are dependent on now we were not (or far less) dependent on 25 years ago. This has to be maintained, paid for etc. Whereas the "reading/writing/printing books/letters infrastructure" is basically 500 years old (or maybe 200 if we are talking about books as a widespread commodity or >2000 if we include handcopied scrolls and books) and comparably resilient (unless one makes up stuff like self-immolation).

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4 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

IMO all books spontaneously self-immolating is about as likely as all the infrastructure for the internet suddenly stopping working.

Carrington Event (massive solar flare) = Internet severely crippled or eliminated along with most other high tech electronic items, possibly for a year plus.  That is the extreme case, of course.

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this is nonsense because there is no known mechanism for the global self-immolation of books but there are many possibilities how the internet etc. could fail (it does not have to fail suddenly everywhere all at once). Therefore probabilities can hardly be the same.

It is also beside the point I was making which was about general dependence on some additional infrastructure that has to be maintained, affordable, accessible etc. and therefore makes a clear difference, not about possible catastrophic scenarios (the "flash" I mentioned was not meant to be a real scenario, just to compare with ca. 1990).

In any case it is a tangent because the main point here is not failsafe infrastructure but cognitive and other changes associated with media use. We probably do not have clarity about causation here but all kinds of psychological, behavioral problems, personality disorders etc. (especially but not restricted to children and adolescents) have skyrocketed in the last few decades. Not only the specific things mentioned in the smartphone article above but far more general problems. ADHS was virtually unknown or at least rare before 1980s or so.

And I wonder in which world people get the impression that we (or the average or even the well educated person) today is better at "critical thinking skills" than in former times...

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6 hours ago, Jo498 said:

this is nonsense because there is no known mechanism for the global self-immolation of books but there are many possibilities how the internet etc. could fail (it does not have to fail suddenly everywhere all at once). Therefore probabilities can hardly be the same.

It is also beside the point I was making which was about general dependence on some additional infrastructure that has to be maintained, affordable, accessible etc. and therefore makes a clear difference, not about possible catastrophic scenarios (the "flash" I mentioned was not meant to be a real scenario, just to compare with ca. 1990).

In any case it is a tangent because the main point here is not failsafe infrastructure but cognitive and other changes associated with media use. We probably do not have clarity about causation here but all kinds of psychological, behavioral problems, personality disorders etc. (especially but not restricted to children and adolescents) have skyrocketed in the last few decades. Not only the specific things mentioned in the smartphone article above but far more general problems. ADHS was virtually unknown or at least rare before 1980s or so.

And I wonder in which world people get the impression that we (or the average or even the well educated person) today is better at "critical thinking skills" than in former times...

1) Psychological issues are more prevalent now because we know more about them and can diagnose them better.  ADHS was virtually unknown because 40 years ago those children were 'difficult' and 'rambunctious'.  Just because it went undiagnosed for most of human history doesn't mean it didn't exist.

2) I'd love to see data around 'critical thinking skills' deteriorating over time.  It seems like every generation has said the same, so I'm curious how one comes to this conclusion without resorting to some anecdotal story.

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3 hours ago, aceluby said:

1) Psychological issues are more prevalent now because we know more about them and can diagnose them better.  ADHS was virtually unknown because 40 years ago those children were 'difficult' and 'rambunctious'.  Just because it went undiagnosed for most of human history doesn't mean it didn't exist.

Yep, the logic Jo is using is the exact same logic that has people screaming about vaccines causing Autism. Autism rates are almost certainly higher due to better diagnosis (and it changing to a spectrum), rather than just calling the autistic kid "retarded" and moving on.

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On 16-8-2017 at 9:39 AM, Jo498 said:

this is nonsense because there is no known mechanism for the global self-immolation of books but there are many possibilities how the internet etc. could fail (it does not have to fail suddenly everywhere all at once). Therefore probabilities can hardly be the same.

It is also beside the point I was making which was about general dependence on some additional infrastructure that has to be maintained, affordable, accessible etc. and therefore makes a clear difference, not about possible catastrophic scenarios (the "flash" I mentioned was not meant to be a real scenario, just to compare with ca. 1990).

In any case it is a tangent because the main point here is not failsafe infrastructure but cognitive and other changes associated with media use. We probably do not have clarity about causation here but all kinds of psychological, behavioral problems, personality disorders etc. (especially but not restricted to children and adolescents) have skyrocketed in the last few decades. Not only the specific things mentioned in the smartphone article above but far more general problems. ADHS was virtually unknown or at least rare before 1980s or so.

And I wonder in which world people get the impression that we (or the average or even the well educated person) today is better at "critical thinking skills" than in former times...

I agree with this to an extent.....by which I mean I agree that you certainly are no better at critical thinking than people in former times.

You saying that ADHS and such were virtually unknown or rare before the 1980s is an insult not just to people with psychological problems, but an insult to thinking in itself.

Like Ace said, the behavioral issues were there, there just weren't names for it. People were just called "stupid", "hopeless" or "idiots" instead. I know this because i've talked to people who grew up having these issues (before the 80s, if it wasn't clear enough) and were fed the same line of horseshit and blamed for things outside of their control.

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