In Defense Of The Digital Age

Limerick Day
Whitmonday (Christian)
Birthday - Katharine Hepburn (100th B'day)

 

Here’s a fun one for you: chairman_wow pointed me to the latest take on how Kids These Days Are Dumbasses And It’s All The Internet’s Fault. It’s an article (on, I would like to point out, the internet) showcasing a book by Mark Bauerlein, subtly titled The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. It offers eight of what we will loosely call “reasons” for this assertion, presented to you in nice, short, 1-2 sentence format, along with pictures to help illustrate that kids are dumb and can’t read.

 

I’d like to respectfully disagree with Author Mark Bauerlein on this subject, but the fact of the matter is that there’s very little respect about it. The arguments are sweeping generalizations and often illogical. But I still want to disagree with him because, frankly, I am one of those kids and I want to point out that we’re not all that stupid. So actually, what I’m gonna do on here is spitefully disagree with him. But maybe I’m biased. Maybe his book is a bit smarter in its presentation, and I can disagree with that with a modicum of real intelligence. As to this article, though, I just want to take it slide-by-slide, and point out everything wrong with the “reasons” Kids These Days are dumb as bricks because they blog:

( Read more... )

Back-Breaking Straws

In keeping with the overall theme of my last week or so, today has not been a very good day.

To illustrate: In the last four hours I have lost a $20 bill* and one of my Servos.

I’m trying to decide whether a nice bout of crying like a girl would be a good stress reliever at the moment or not. Or maybe I should focus on the good things of today, like how much fun the previous post was, or how the nice lady at the Bookstore’s info booth offered to tape my frayed headphones up so I wouldn’t have to spend extra money on a whole roll of electrical tape, or how that $20 may very well rematerialize in a pocket at some point as a fun surprise. But right now, crying seems like the cathartically nice way to go. Or a nap. Followed by a cup of tea.  Followed by going to bed.

Yeah, that might be my best shot.


Maybe you can cheer me up by filling out the pirates/ninjas survey Or it may just make you happy. Either way, it's worth your time. 


*Look, I’m a college kid. That’s a lot of ramen.