Gamers part of “Dumbest Generation”, says Author

By James Walker • August 20, 2008

Mark Bauerlein, author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, has discovered the secret of why the children of today are fucking stupid: Video games.

More specifically, Bauerlein blames “the internet, e-mail, blogs, and interactive and hyper-realistic video games” for the stupification of the modern American youth. In a rather in-depth interview with the folks at Canada.com, Bauerlein talks about his book and the views behind the book.

Before everybody gets riled up, keep this in mind: He’s not wrong in saying that the average gamer is part of the dumbest generation. However, his placing the blame on technology is, to be frank, the easy argument. Anybody can say that MySpace has turned us into drooling wastes of protoplasm.

If you want to take the matter seriously, you have to look at the way education is handled in the United States. Most public schools are criminally underfunded. Those few public schools that are NOT underfunded are spending their funding on stupid shit like new footballs and 200 gallons of navy blue paint for their bleachers when they should be investing in new science equipment and textbooks that were published this decade. As for college, the reason why colleges are seeing fewer and fewer people enroll is not because they can’t pass the tests, it’s because every semester these universities increase their enrollment fees.

Now, does that mean that modern technology is completely absolved of any blame? Certainly not. Anybody who has read a “PS3 vs. 360 vs. Wii” message board discission can easily see that there are some people that simply canot be saved. However, to place blame on technology alone undermines the whole argument.

(thanks for the link, AndyP.)