Are Humans Becoming Dumber?

*sigh*



In the end ..........................it still is evolution imo.......for better or worse

Mzzls

 

Nice

 

This is the inevitable outcome, if you get too complacent and comfortable, and turn your back on science, learning and education, a.k.a bettering yourself. Too often, if the good times keep going for too long, it's too easy to start taking things for granted, and not put in the effort to maintain this system anymore. When things then start falling apart, the uneducated masses start resorting to emotional knee-jerk reactions, rather than carefully analyzing the situation and developing the skills and solutions needed to fix the issue. Empires often begin to crumble this way, when people get too comfortable and abandon critical thinking.

 

Here are a few examples:

A licensed nurse practitioner calls me "to review my recent visit" with my primary care physician. She reads the printed report to me
verbatim, every last syllable mispronouncing most of the medical terms -- it just happens to say the exact things as the report I was given.
When she is done - I politely tell her that I was there -- during the visit. Durrrrr

 

I don’t think we’re getting dumber at all - though there is a huge anti intellectual movement mostly driven by the right in America, anti-science, anti-history, banning books etc. From my observations kids today are much more academically advanced.

 

Perhaps, but definitely stunted in the social skills, empathy and work ethics departments. But I guess that's how they were raised. The biggest problem is that damn iphone that is glued to everyone's brain. Jesus, I was creeping through a parking lot yesterday looking for a spot and 3 teens, each doing the zombie phone walk just walked right out, none of them looked either way and looked at me like "whattareyoudoing....driving where we are walking in the road ...?" Oh my.

 

I agree with the dangers of technology but I don’t see the kids as lazy (especially not this) or socially unskilled. The kids I encounter have way busier schedules they’re managing than I did as a kid. School is harder and more work - college is way harder to get into. All sports are year round. I remember working as a teenager for sure, but also having tons of free time.

 

Lazy, no, but it seems we are learning AP Calculus 3 in 10th grade just to get into college where they will mostly take courses to pass tests and get a degree, but learn few life skills, nobody can understand how to budget, understand simple economics or balance a checking account....("checking"....that's almost funny)..or how to fix a car or even cook, much less think and reason. I think they will eventually evolve into beings with fast(er) pointed texting thumbs and no voice. The entire generation is so entitled and expects so much to be handed to them - things that we all worked our lives to get. Drive by a high school and look at the cars in the parking lot.....wow....

 

Maybe you’re right, but there is an element of this exact sentiment that every generation has said about the next generation. Maybe their world is just different from ours, not wholly better or worse, just different

 

How true. I will back off in the grumpy man department. Of course MY kids are perfect.

 

The thing is, those things that the kids want, if they can't get them, they're gonna get left behind. This could seriously hurt both their academic progress as well as their standing in their respective social groups. Laptops and smart devices are ubiquitous in today's school world. They're being used for actual studying and work, and not just Facebook. Denying the kid these tools could actually hurt the kid's academic progress, and thus, his/hers later chances in life. I played computer and video games as a kid. My parents felt that it was all useless and not ever needed for anything. Today I'm the one who had to teach them Internet banking, because they had remained so happily ignorant about all this stuff for so long, and I'm now the only guy in the family with the skills needed to teach them, precisely because I was allowed to have my computer hobby back then.

Also, why should the younger generations start from scratch every time? That's regressive, and a mindset that sounds like petty jealousy to me. One should never give in to this way of thinking, because it might actually hold the younger generations back and stop them from being able to take the next step in progress. Only by standing on the shoulders of giants are you able to reach even higher than they did. But if the giants decide to cast you down, they've created a situation where the kids will no longer be able to reach the heights they maybe could've, thus stopping their progress to get to the top. If this becomes something that pierces an entire generation, it could damage society as a whole.

In this boomers vs. millennials-debate, the millennials often point out that the boomers had it easier, because they didn't have to pay nearly as much for their property and homes compared to how much millennials are expected to pay today. I'm talking about this rampant, out of control inflation. 50 years ago single income was enough to support a family of five. Now even childless, two-income households struggle, which incidentally is one of the reasons for our dropping birth rates. Children have become too expensive.

Today's generations of young adults are also facing a really shitty and fucked up job market that offers no security whatsoever. Employers would love nothing more than to just take and not give anything back. With this in mind, I only find it fair that the older generations would actually support the younger ones and help boost them, rather than pettily put them down over some perceived laziness, while desperately clinging on to their possessions, actually thinking that they could somehow take it all with them when they die. Those things that you gift to your kids today might tomorrow just prove to be the necessary assets that help the next generation take us forward in progress.

 

I must admit, that I did a lot of just hanging out in the summer time.

 

Yes. Most parents of old, have thought that their generation was the greatest ever and the one below them was destined for going to hell, in a hand basket.

 

Are humans becoming dumber?

absofuckinlutely!

I wish that had been a question in my 'nearly-passed' exam! lol

The more technology does the 'thinking' for us, the more people will think less (for themselves) and therefore, as a consequence, become dumber.

Degrees should be graduated differently. (pun intended).
Those which are career enhancing, eg law, medicine, engineering, economics
should be valued more than a degree that is job/role focused, eg a degree in mickey mouse.
(speaking of the UK here).

I think it's dishonest and morally wrong to let our teenagers think they have a 'degree' when it's got such limited use that it's of little value.
I've heard some teenagers say that they're going for a degree in media studies because it's easier than law and they still get a degree at the end of it.
I mean wut? ffs.

 

All I can hear is “get off my lawn”

 

Not sure I understand your comment MolyCuddled. (assuming it was in response to mine)

 

I think the whole discussion about ‘kids these days’ is just the old guy shouting getting off my lawn. Every generation things this about younger generations. So far they’ve all been wrong and it’s just the world changing. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong this time, but I wouldn’t bet against it

 

Reliance on electronics is dumbing down the population. Case in point without an electronic cash register which calculates change for you most people are at a loss on how to make change. I had a food bill for $11 and change. I dug out the correct coinage but all I had was a twenty and a bunch of ones. Not enough ones to make the $11 and I didn't want any more ones in my wallet. So I gave up the twenty and added a single one dollar bill. The look I got was amusing and the clerk tried to hand me back the one. I refused and had her to put in the amount given into the register. When she handed me my cash it was a five and 4 ones. Really? She even fucked up the input to the register. I got so tickled I took the cash and went on my way shorted a dollar. But the laugh I got was worth it.

 

I get the unreasonability of lumping all young ones into the same category. Of course it's not all young ones but I know some young ones - not just my children (35/31) - who laugh at the notion of some degrees being labeled 'degrees'.
Nothing wrong - in my view - with anyone studying to improve their outlook, outcome and income but, the graduation of education is seriously flawed.
Easiest example perhaps, is in relation to those labeled as educationally sub normal or dyslexic. Those issues/conditions are equally broad brush and the ed system fails them. I know some dyslexics who are as clever as anyone else but who really struggle and fail to pass exams in the standard ed system. The whole thing needs reform and to do so would, I think, push those who want them 'off their lawn' to realise that their lawn would be in better condition if they let others onto it.

 

When I was a kid there were no services, no understanding and no strategies to help kids with any special needs. If you had less severe special needs you likely struggled in school and tough luck for you. If you had more significant special needs then you were segregated into classrooms with similar students with a teacher who was there to babysit for the day. So could we do better now? Of course. But we’re doing 100 times better then we were, especially for this group of kids. Great students were and always will be great students. Previously that’s all we cared about.