In this week’s episode of InsideAcademia.tv, Andy Nash speaks with Mark Bauerlein on how modern social technology and targeted media isolate and absorb young people as often — if not more — than those technologies empower them as thinkers, as intellectuals, and as maturing adults.
In the interview, Bauerlein speaks bluntly about the problem as he sees it:
“Youth culture is, by and large, anti-intellectual. It is anti-eloquence, anti-historical, [and] it is fixated on the concerns of adolescence. The trends, the fashions, the idioms, the lingo, the music, of seventeen year olds, and that world is adolescent.
“What’s happened is that we’ve lost that adult pressure in young people’s lives, and we’ve got now peer pressure all the time, and this is not harming their native intelligence, but it’s wrapping them up, absorbing them into adolsecent concerns way too much through the adolescent years.
“The idea of indulging the young,” says Bauerlein, “is an abdication of responsibility” by adults, and mentors, he says, should promote engagement with “intelligent media.”
“You have to preserve critical period of time in the day to encounter important things in history, politics, arts, literature. If you don’t, it will cost you when you’re 30 years old. They will help you in the workplace, in the job interview.”
"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes
for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."
Attributed to Socrates in Plato's Republic, Book 4
We're dumber than our parents were in the 60s? Really?
I don't deny that technology can dumb down as well as educate. But every generation thinks the younger generation is doomed, even as they forget their own nonsense. The internet and easy access to information have done much to facilitate democracy and freedom throughout the world. This is why autocrats try to censor and restrict information and technology.
He didn't say that we should censor or restrict information. What he said was that kids need to be forced to spend time with and around adults for some portion of their day.
I totally agree with what he says. But then again, I'm from the old school and my kids don't have cell phones or computers in their rooms. What I do have is kids that know manners and can have a conversation with an older person. They have plenty of social time, but they also have adult time. And the adults notice the difference. They get many compliments on their behavior.
As far as I can tell, what he is saying is not that the self-absorbed nature of this generation of teenagers is unique. Teenagers have been self-absorbed presumably ever since the first Neanderthal turned 13 and said, "I didn't ask to be born, and you aren't the boss of me. I can go out with that Cro-Magnon boy if I want to. I'm going our to ride my mammoth now, and you can't stop me."
The issue with this generation is that the adults seem less inclined to check the standard teenage behavior and force their kids to start thinking about adult matters. Instead, kids are allowed to stay self-absorbed teenagers well into their twenties.
Charles121, sure, the older generations have always thought the younger were imbeciles who would take the world to hell in a handbasket. But would you really deny, as your post implies, that when adolescents spend the bulk of their time engaged in social media and computer technology, their tendencies toward self-absorption are enforced? And further, that when playing games and conversing with peers is no longer done face to face, but remotely, without the peer's face being seen for clues to intention, emotional tone, etc., socialization skills remain underdeveloped?
Yes, it's typical of teenagers to behave as if they know everything and flout their parents -- which is why it has always been important for adults/parents to engage these teenagers and educate them. Not allow them to live in an adolescents-only world where their ignorance is never challenged.
Renne, my point was that every generation sees the younger one as the a bunch of lazy layabouts. As others pointed out, the flower children of the 60s and the punks of the 80s seemed to have turned out okay. I'm 27, so while I'm not a member of the facebook generation, my generation wasn't expected to amount to anything since we were too busy watching TV and playing Nintendo. When I'm 60, I have no doubt that I'll accuse the new crop of kids of spending too much time with their hypercubes and space-androids.
Every generation, this fear is brought up, book are sold, and eventually proves to be a bunch of malarky.
It is to despair: these kids have no moral or social rudder. Seeing the junior high kids--obnoxious, ill-mannered louts, running people down on skateboards, 'boarding being their emblematic culture: thuggish, slovenly, and empty. Engaging in disorderly, brain-washed leftist conduct (screaming, "Cancer Sucks!" in front of a clean, neat-looking tobacco shop--and note, I hate smoking), the boys dressed like slobs or thugs, the girls dressed like slobs or billboards for immodesty.
This is not, as the rationalizers are saying, grouchy older generations condemning rising youth. This is the commentary of those fearful of a younger generation--as with all generalizations, with some exceptions--whose loyalties are exclusively to Orwellian shibboleths and their own spoiled selves.
"The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they alone knew everything and what passes
for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for girls, they are forward, immodest and unwomanly in speech, behaviour and dress."
Attributed to Socrates in Plato's Republic, Book 4
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWe're dumber than our parents were in the 60s? Really?
I don't deny that technology can dumb down as well as educate. But every generation thinks the younger generation is doomed, even as they forget their own nonsense. The internet and easy access to information have done much to facilitate democracy and freedom throughout the world. This is why autocrats try to censor and restrict information and technology.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe didn't say that we should censor or restrict information. What he said was that kids need to be forced to spend time with and around adults for some portion of their day.
I totally agree with what he says. But then again, I'm from the old school and my kids don't have cell phones or computers in their rooms. What I do have is kids that know manners and can have a conversation with an older person. They have plenty of social time, but they also have adult time. And the adults notice the difference. They get many compliments on their behavior.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs far as I can tell, what he is saying is not that the self-absorbed nature of this generation of teenagers is unique. Teenagers have been self-absorbed presumably ever since the first Neanderthal turned 13 and said, "I didn't ask to be born, and you aren't the boss of me. I can go out with that Cro-Magnon boy if I want to. I'm going our to ride my mammoth now, and you can't stop me."
The issue with this generation is that the adults seem less inclined to check the standard teenage behavior and force their kids to start thinking about adult matters. Instead, kids are allowed to stay self-absorbed teenagers well into their twenties.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseCharles121, sure, the older generations have always thought the younger were imbeciles who would take the world to hell in a handbasket. But would you really deny, as your post implies, that when adolescents spend the bulk of their time engaged in social media and computer technology, their tendencies toward self-absorption are enforced? And further, that when playing games and conversing with peers is no longer done face to face, but remotely, without the peer's face being seen for clues to intention, emotional tone, etc., socialization skills remain underdeveloped?
Yes, it's typical of teenagers to behave as if they know everything and flout their parents -- which is why it has always been important for adults/parents to engage these teenagers and educate them. Not allow them to live in an adolescents-only world where their ignorance is never challenged.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRenne, my point was that every generation sees the younger one as the a bunch of lazy layabouts. As others pointed out, the flower children of the 60s and the punks of the 80s seemed to have turned out okay. I'm 27, so while I'm not a member of the facebook generation, my generation wasn't expected to amount to anything since we were too busy watching TV and playing Nintendo. When I'm 60, I have no doubt that I'll accuse the new crop of kids of spending too much time with their hypercubes and space-androids.
Every generation, this fear is brought up, book are sold, and eventually proves to be a bunch of malarky.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThis post is all too true.
It is to despair: these kids have no moral or social rudder. Seeing the junior high kids--obnoxious, ill-mannered louts, running people down on skateboards, 'boarding being their emblematic culture: thuggish, slovenly, and empty. Engaging in disorderly, brain-washed leftist conduct (screaming, "Cancer Sucks!" in front of a clean, neat-looking tobacco shop--and note, I hate smoking), the boys dressed like slobs or thugs, the girls dressed like slobs or billboards for immodesty.
This is not, as the rationalizers are saying, grouchy older generations condemning rising youth. This is the commentary of those fearful of a younger generation--as with all generalizations, with some exceptions--whose loyalties are exclusively to Orwellian shibboleths and their own spoiled selves.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse