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


GAROVORKIN

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The current generation  loves technology and is quite  savvy this regard .  But, when it comes to basic knowledge, Literature,  History , Geography , art   and even common sense everyday things , one gets the impression that the current generation is somehow lacking . For example Who is George Washington Carver? What is the Magna Carta and when was it signed and by which king and in what country ?Who was the King deposed by Oliver Cromwell ?What are the Bill of Rights?  Who was Alexander Graham Bell's chief rival when he was developing his telephone ? Where is Mount Everest located and was the name of the man who first conquer it? Who wrote Look Homeward Angel and who wrote Young Goodman Brown.   There also seems to be a lack of appreciation of for knowledge and its acquisition  beyond  the utility of passing exams . There seems to be a lack of appreciation  of knowledge for it's own sake.  Why do  do you suppose that is and should be we concerned by these developments?  And what do you suppose it might like in other 20 years or so with the generation afterward?

 

Thoughts:mellow:

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I'm 17, yet I'm here at a literature forum. And I'm not even a native speaker of English. I had to spend 11 years learning it, and in the meantime I've been working and studying tons of other stuff as well. So please don't throw me in your bag of 'current generation morons'.

And I'd advise generalisations, like the one you've just made.

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I think if you take an actual honest look at previous generations, you'd see on a whole that the vast majority of people are 'knowledge poor'.  To say that 'the current generation' suffers from it more than others is a gross mischaracterization IMO.

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Why do you think you can categorize an entire generation like that?  The variance within the generation will be much greater than across generations.  Plus, this generation has far more access to knowledge and is presumably more knowledgeable than any before, but they also have vast new areas of knowledge to tap so they may care much less about Alexander Graham Bell or Mt. Everest -- which seemed profoundly important just a couple of generations ago.

Something I do notice with my son, now going into 5th grade, is that his school focuses much more on developing the characteristics of a strong student rather than pursuing a foundation of knowledge, e.g. they encouraged the kids to study whatever aspect of ancient Egypt they found most interesting, but did not spend any time as a group on why ancient Egypt was such a developed & persistent civilization, nor how it changed or stagnated over time and why.  Self-driven study has supplanted a shared foundation, e.g. classical education, or even a guided focus on the most instructive aspect.  I don't know if this is generational or cultural or both.

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What comparative data are you using to reach this conclusion? Or are you just basing this off a couple millennials you interact with who aren't interested in the things you're interested in?

 

 

6 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Why do you think you can categorize an entire generation like that?  The variance within the generation will be much greater than across generations.  Plus, this generation has far more access to knowledge and is presumably more knowledgeable than any before, but they also have vast new areas of knowledge to tap so they may care much less about Alexander Graham Bell or Mt. Everest -- which seemed profoundly important just a couple of generations ago.

Something I do notice with my son, now going into 5th grade, is that his school focuses much more on developing the characteristics of a strong student rather than pursuing a foundation of knowledge, e.g. they encouraged the kids to study whatever aspect of ancient Egypt they found most interesting, but did not spend any time as a group on why ancient Egypt was such a developed & persistent civilization, nor how it changed or stagnated over time and why.  Self-driven study has supplanted a shared foundation, e.g. classical education, or even a guided focus on the most instructive aspect.  I don't know if this is generational or cultural or both.

That likely has more to do with the type of school your child in.  I would guess either a private one, a charter school, or one in a very wealthy district that is able to be more experimental.  

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14 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Why do you think you can categorize an entire generation like that?  The variance within the generation will be much greater than across generations.  Plus, this generation has far more access to knowledge and is presumably more knowledgeable than any before, but they also have vast new areas of knowledge to tap so they may care much less about Alexander Graham Bell or Mt. Everest -- which seemed profoundly important just a couple of generations ago.

Something I do notice with my son, now going into 5th grade, is that his school focuses much more on developing the characteristics of a strong student rather than pursuing a foundation of knowledge, e.g. they encouraged the kids to study whatever aspect of ancient Egypt they found most interesting, but did not spend any time as a group on why ancient Egypt was such a developed & persistent civilization, nor how it changed or stagnated over time and why.  Self-driven study has supplanted a shared foundation, e.g. classical education, or even a guided focus on the most instructive aspect.  I don't know if this is generational or cultural or both.

 

A simple  touch of a mouse,  Yes they have all this instant knowledge , No effort required.   For some reason a Thomas Paine Quote come to mind "That with which we obtain to easily , we esteem too lightly "  

 

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45 minutes ago, Blue Tiger said:

I'm 17, yet I'm here at a literature forum. And I'm not even a native speaker of English. I had to spend 11 years learning it, and in the meantime I've been working and studying tons of other stuff as well. So please don't throw me in your bag of 'current generation morons'.

And I'd advise generalisations, like the one you've just made.

 I was merely trying to get a discussion going ? That's all.:mellow:

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40 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

The current generation  loves technology and is quite  savvy this regard .  But, when it comes to basic knowledge, Literature,  History , Geography , art   and even common sense everyday things , one gets the impression that the current generation is somehow lacking . For example Who is George Washington Carver? What is the Magna Carta and when was it signed and by which king and in what country ?Who was the King deposed by Oliver Cromwell ?What are the Bill of Rights?  Who was Alexander Graham Bell's chief rival when he was developing his telephone ? Where is Mount Everest located and was the name of the man who first conquer it? Who wrote Look Homeward Angel and who wrote Young Goodman Brown.   There also seems to be a lack of appreciation of for knowledge and its acquisition  beyond  the utility of passing exams . There seems to be a lack of appreciation  of knowledge for it's own sake.  Why do  do you suppose that is and should be we concerned by these developments?  And what do you suppose it might like in other 20 years or so with the generation afterward?

Thoughts:mellow:

Who gives a shit? Aside from maybe the Magna Carta when is any of this going to be useful? If you want to learn about any of this that's great, but let's not act like not knowing who Alexanders Graham Bell's rival was is a bad thing. That's just trivia.

Besides I have a phone and access to google, so I can find any of these out in an instant. Why would I then waste time learning and memorizing who the author of a book I never even heard of was when I could be doing something I enjoy.

And why would I want teachers to waste their time making kids memorize trivia when they could be teaching those kids the value of being able to think critically. What they learn is much less important than how they learn.

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1 minute ago, TrueMetis said:

Who gives a shit? Aside from maybe the Magna Carta when is any of this going to be useful? If you want to learn about any of this that's great, but let's not act like not knowing who Alexanders Graham Bell's rival was is a bad thing. That's just trivia.

Besides I have a phone and access to google, so I can find any of these out in an instant. Why would I then waste time learning and memorizing who the author of a book I never even heard of was when I could be doing something I enjoy.

And why would I want teachers to waste their time making kids memorize trivia when they could be teaching those kids the value of being able to think critically. What they learn is much less important than how they learn.

 

What would you do if Google and the internet and the phones suddenly all just stopped ?  Would you start to be a bit concerned then? Just asking.

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2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 

What would you do if Google and the internet and the phones suddenly all just stopped ?  Would you start to be a bit concerned then? Just asking.

Sure, but at that point who George Washington Carver was is even more irrelevant because some serious shit has gone down. The only thing that could cause google, the internet and phones to all just suddenly stop is a civilization ending catastrophe. And if that happens and you're focusing on who was deposed by Cromwell or who wrote a book than you're going die.

Me? I've got useful skills and the ability to think critically. I'm gonna be fine.

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8 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 

What would you do if Google and the internet and the phones suddenly all just stopped ?  Would you start to be a bit concerned then? Just asking.

Yes, for ENTIRELY DIFFERENT REASONS.

If the internet and the phones suddenly all stopped I'd be a bit more concerned with the collapse of the entire world economy and massive warfare likely starting immediately. I would not be that concerned that people did not know off the top of their head who George Washington Carver was. 

There is nothing inherently valuable in rote memorization. 

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7 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Sure, but at that point who George Washington Carver was is even more irrelevant because some serious shit has gone down. The only thing that could cause google, the internet and phones to all just suddenly stop is a civilization ending catastrophe. And if that happens and you're focusing on who was deposed by Cromwell or who wrote a book than you're going die.

Me? I've got useful skills and the ability to think critically. I'm gonna be fine.

 

That's a more then reasonable point. :mellow:  In a  collapse fewer people would have the luxury to give consideration to as to who George Washington Carver or anything else.  If all our tech did collapse it would be a new dark age.

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I am not sure if they are tech savy. They can play with their gadgets but the fraction who is interested in understanding them is probably as low as in former times, or actually lower. In my generation some (not I)  painstakingly copied BASIC code from computer magazines to have games or simple programs on their early/mid 1980s computers, so they were forced to gain some understanding. Similarly with radios, cars, motorcycles etc. even earlier.

As for more traditional knowledge, these things shift all the time and it always depends which fields and which segments of the populace one compares. In my grandparent's (born in the early 20th century) and parent's generation (born in the 1940s) many people with 8 years of schooling would know dozens of longish poems, songs, bible passages by heart, could do sums and percentages in their head or at least on a bit of paper without electronic help. They had also all kinds of practical knowledge in gardening, cooking, household stuff I and many others today are hopeless with. Today someone with the lowest school degree (which is now 9-10 years in Germany) will often fail at rather elementary calculations and hardly be able to write a comprehensible letter in acceptable orthography. But of course back then 50% or more of the populace only had 8 school years whereas today many of this lowest tier have special needs and issues, so it is hardly a fair comparison.

But "average" college(-bound) students of today (in Germany) speak (according to my anecdotal) evidence overall considerably better English than my generation (born in the 70s) did (or does) but they also have all kinds of gaps I often find astonishing. (I easily retain lots of exotic "useless" sundry miscellaneous knowledge so I am often surprised at what people I consider intelligent and knowledgeable do not know. And admittedly I am pissed at smartphones that allow people to look up everything everywhere quickly, so I cannot stun them anymore with knowing/quoting/citing all kinds of stuff without looking it up... ;))

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1 hour ago, aceluby said:

I think if you take an actual honest look at previous generations, you'd see on a whole that the vast majority of people are 'knowledge poor'.  To say that 'the current generation' suffers from it more than others is a gross mischaracterization IMO.

 

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1 hour ago, aceluby said:

I think if you take an actual honest look at previous generations, you'd see on a whole that the vast majority of people are 'knowledge poor'.  To say that 'the current generation' suffers from it more than others is a gross mischaracterization IMO.

I can only speak from anecdotal evidence, but if one looks at some older (say early 20th century) school or reading material for elementary school, I think there are indications that not only rote learning but also understanding of fairly complicated texts was valued higher. Of course without any actual research I have no clue how many of the students back then were hopelessly overtaxed by the material.

Overall, I am as wary about the millenia-old complaint about the useless youth (although I have unfortunately entered an age where I tend to share the impression) as about a "generalised Flynn Effect" or similar claim that we are so much smarter than all or most former generations because of technology.

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1 hour ago, aceluby said:

I think if you take an actual honest look at previous generations, you'd see on a whole that the vast majority of people are 'knowledge poor'.  To say that 'the current generation' suffers from it more than others is a gross mischaracterization IMO.

 

The title of this  topic starts with the Words Do You Think  its True?  Also I did use the words in the   one gets the impression .    

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40 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 I was merely trying to get a discussion going ? That's all.:mellow:

If you were treated with disrespect and your ideas and posts and essays were diminished and judged not basing on their quality and value, but basing on the author's (in this case mine) age, wouldn't you get a bit annoyed when you see the same generalising and stereotypical claims again? 

But, I bear you no ill will, and I believe that you bear no ill will towards me, or anyone else. 

So, sorry if my post sounded like an attack on your and your thread. It seems  you've started a great and fascinating discussion. And that's good.

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3 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

I can only speak from anecdotal evidence, but if one looks at some older (say early 20th century) school or reading material for elementary school, I think there are indications that not only rote learning but also understanding of fairly complicated texts was valued higher. Of course without any actual research I have no clue how many of the students back then were hopelessly overtaxed by the material.

Overall, I am as wary about the millenia-old complaint about the useless youth (although I have unfortunately entered an age where I tend to share the impression) as about a "generalised Flynn Effect" or similar claim that we are so much smarter than all or most former generations because of technology.

Im rather skeptical of the whole nation our technology has  made us smarter . What sets apart from past generations is the fact that we more tools to work with. 

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1 hour ago, GAROVORKIN said:

There also seems to be a lack of appreciation of for knowledge and its acquisition  beyond  the utility of passing exams . There seems to be a lack of appreciation  of knowledge for it's own sake.  Why do  do you suppose that is and should be we concerned by these developments?  And what do you suppose it might like in other 20 years or so with the generation afterward?

 

Well, since that's how they've set up the whole educational system, I wouldn't say it's fair to blame anybody for being a part of it.

Here, in Poland, the middle aka junior secondary school is basically a three-years long course preparing you for few exams, with the points gained there being the sole reason for your acceptance to a good high school. And high school is even more obvious preparatory course for a single exam. The teachers know more-or-less which part of the curriculum will they ask about in the exam questions and tasks... So for three years no one gives a s*** about what you actually can do or can't do... The school just wants to have graduates with 80, 90% etc. points at the final exam. Not smart or knowledgeable people. Cretins good at answering a question created according to a key and guidelines known to everybody.

 

Take Hamlet for example. You don't have to understand wtf is going on, or the message, or the symbolism. You have to remember that 'Hamlet is an example of a tragic hero'.

For example, on Polish literature final exam the topic of an essay you have to write always follows the same pattern:

'Is love/patriotism/bravery/heroism/ whatever worth fighting for/suffering for/whatever. Mention two examples of characters from literature to support your thesis'.

 

So, during three years of lessons you learn that character A (Hamlet, Macbeth, Frodo Baggins, Ebenezer Scrooge) can be used to support Thesis B. 

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9 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Im rather skeptical of the whole nation our technology has  made us smarter . What sets apart from past generations is the fact that we more tools to work with. 

Continous progress is a concept well-liked by those who support whatever ideology is in power right now. It's tempting to see 'our' civilization and culture as the pinnacle of all progress ever. 

 

I guess that's why things like in the Reneissance many scholars tried to show the Middle Ages as nothing more than Dark Ages full of clumsy and filithy idiots (who supposedly didn't even bathe... While in fact, it was a certain reneissance doctor who came up with a brilliant concept that bathing is bad for health... Well, if you bathe in a river near a major city, this might be true). Earlier, we had the same pattern with Classical and Antiquity painted as times of depravity and gluttony... And this pattern appears with virtually every civilisation ever.

I think that we should realise that we're all only humans after all and there'll be good and bad, smart and stupid, decent and cruel people in every generation of every civilisation. 

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