Are kids becoming dumber?

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http://www.sacbee.com/2010/09/27/306055 ... on-of.html

This article says yes. Kids today can't tie shoes, use a can opener, use a zipper or an ice cube tray. Everything is done for them. But hey, they can use electronic technology wonderfully! But if the power goes out, they're dead in the water. What would happen if China blew up our power grid? Everybody under 30 would have no way to look up "surrender techniques" in their iphones. Are we in the dystopia predicted in the 70s by people who said humanity would devolve due to technology making life too easy?

I defiantly agree, even people my age are totally useless

Yes and no.

Parents are becoming dumber as well, inattentiveness is a pandemic.

Please see:

http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/FLYNNEFF.html

You guys are overlooking the Flyn effect completely.


ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 28 Sep 2010, 6:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

I would also consider someone who couldn't use basic technology dumb. I don't see how an inability to tie shoes or zip jackets at a certain age "dumb." If anything it's just letting children develop these skills when they're individually ready, not pressuring them. I was late developing such skills and I do not consider it dumb.

If life depended on it, most teenagers would be able to figure out a can opener. It's still a contraption just like any other. If anything it's just a mark of laziness, not stupidity.

I'm a "kid," (well, I'm 23, so I'm an adult, but I'm still on the young side of adulthood) and I wouldn't say that I'm dumb at all. Little hint: generalizations usually don't apply to 100% of the population you're applying them to (and in this case, that population would be "kids").

Using IQ tests, kids are actually becoming smarter.

Did you know that Algebra is now the required 8th grade curriculum? When I was kid, only the advanced students took Algebra in 8th grade.

What individuals in society need to know most is an evolving standard. A few hundred years ago the average farmer knew more about soil and crops and gases that trap beneath the earth than any of us can even fathom. As our need to know that information became less critical to modern life, it ceased to be passed on. As the need to understand the programming behind technology has increased, students have fast forwarded on that knowledge, and stopped learning about gears. This is a normal, and constant, process in society.

Your great-great grandfather probably knew how to butcher a cow. Do you?

Is it a little scary to realize that we would have trouble surviving if electricity suddenly ceased to exist? Yes, it is. But what are the odds of that happening in a moment? There is likely to be time to transfer systems and knowledge.

My 13 year old son is already learning to program in 2 different computer languages; he hopes to know 4 or 5 before college, so that he understands the patterns well enough to work in any unknown language, or invent his own. He understood the binary system before he was 10. He's not a genius or a savant; he is AS, and is considered gifted, but is also actually completely within the norm for his generation. He knows things I didn't imagine even existing when I was his age, and doesn't know things I took for granted back then as common knowledge. But what he knows fits the times, and the needs of today.

And he much prefers we buy him velcro shoes, or replace the laces with bungee laces, because tying those darn laces takes too long. He knows how to do it, but would rather not. It doesn't make him less intelligent than a child who likes to tie shoes.

Oh, and he has pondered life without electricity, and how one might survive. He is totally aware of how much we rely on that one element. I really don't think today's kids are dumb at all. Which ... the author actually credits as a viable alternative interpretation. Lol, I wrote all the above before I read the actual article. You're just trying to get us all worked up!

It'd really screw their own economy over.


Speaking of getting dumber: I think conservatives who whine about the good old days are losing it more and more as TV eats up more of their brains.

I think everyone in general are getting dumber. Parents can't parent anymore. People shouldn't have more than one kid. People just can't manage more than that these days.

Scores have been dropping for years, but where I live is turning into a barrio so that explains that. I've heard of a couple bilingual education teachers actually suggest to a couple of students that they miss school on the day that standardized testing is held.

See, I think that's the problem, though. People who ARE smart aren't the ones having kids!

The pattern is generally this: Smart kids go on to take college prep courses and standardized test-taking workshops, after which they take required standardized tests for college admissions. They get in on scholarship, maybe even take a course or two before finishing high school while they take a break from their honors courses. Then they enter a major of their choice, breeze through it while preparing for graduate school entrance exams. The next 4 to 8 years are spent completing doctoral programs and going on to pass state bar exams or medical residencies. After that, they "set up shop," become independently wealthy, and buy a house. THEN they hook up with someone, get married, make a baby or two, and serve on their kids' private school board of trustees for 10-12 years after which they build up trust funds, get divorces, buy Miatas, and retire early.

They don't have kids in part because kids cramp their style, but MOST of all there's no time for a career AND kids. The older you get, the less likely you will have many kids at all or even want them. And even when you have them, you'll never live long enough to enjoy your grandchildren because, since you'll probably raise your kids the same way, they won't even have kids of their own until their 40.

The other route is this: 16 year old hick gets his 14-16 year old girlfriend pregnant. Girl is LUCKY if she squeezes child support out of him. Because he can't afford school due to having to work, he might get lucky to work for his auto mechanic dad, which is probably what HE'LL do for the rest of his life. She, on the other hand, will live on welfare, and will be lucky if she ends up with a meth dealer who only beats her up every now and then. She's too dumb to stay on the pill, he's too dumb to wear condoms, so she'll have 3 or 4 more kids by the time she's 20. THOSE kids will probably look like they have meth mouth by the time they're 8, and she'll teach one or two of them how to fake autism so they can get on disability (I'm not making this up, I have a cousin who does this). Those kids probably won't make it to graduation, nor will they be mentally competent to so much as operate a clamshell grill at McDonald's, and will either get someone pregnant or end up pregnant themselves, hence perpetuating the cycle. They will end up ultimately having, like, 12 kids living in one 3-bedroom trailer so far out in the country they have to pipe in the sunlight.

I'm telling you, the answer is for the smart people to have as many kids as they can as early in life as possible. If they're really smart, they can figure out how to achieve whatever lofty career and educational goals they may have. You want kids to get smarter? Create a culture in which you have a greater number of smart kids disproportionate to the dumb kids. In a free, representative society, such an imbalance of power could ultimately legislate out the kinds of conditions that lead to large numbers of dumb people.

Having lots of kids takes great quantities of time and money needed for basic living and people who care about their kids don't have that anymore.

[deleted]

Nevermind I keep forgetting how cliquey this place is and how most of the regulars only answer back to eachother. I doubt anyone would understand here anyway.

Last edited by MissConstrue on 29 Sep 2010, 1:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Certainly. I have two of my own and I'll probably be in debt for the rest of my life because of them. All I'm saying is that the people who really should be starting their families early aren't. My wife and I are discussing trying for #3, but we're hoping THIS time we'll wait until we have one or both completely out of diapers first before we take that step.

The trouble is, though, that parenting is one of those things that you can't really prepare for, but at the same time you give parenting all that you have. We were constantly in trouble over money after our son was born and weren't really planning to have a second child at that time. We were really scared about how we'd manage, especially because we knew we were about to lose our house. Oddly enough, we found ourselves homeless for a little while, and somehow we still managed with very little. We got some assistance through WIC for essentials, so at least my wife and the kids could have a little to eat (I'm overweight anyway, so it didn't really matter to me not having much to eat). Somehow, we made it and even bought an inexpensive home on the edge of town. We made our WIC pickups for several months after until I pointed out that we'd fallen into the habit of eating out twice a week and we were always buying groceries and had enough. Thus ended our reliance on government cheese. We're still poor, we're just not LIVING like it.

Actually, I volunteer with a group of musicians and have a free gig coming up in Pascagoula, MS. The date coincides with our anniversary, and it just so happens my wife will be in New Orleans on business the week before. So... I'll drive the kids down the day my wife's conference is over, we'll have some fun in the French Quarter, and enjoy ourselves on the Mississippi coast for a couple of days. The sacrifice? We stopped eating out at all, ALMOST quit drinking alcohol (cutting beer and cider is amazingly hard to do, but we've spent less than $10 a week on that over the last two weeks) and set aside $100 a week for 4 weeks in advance of the trip. She'll take a little money out of savings and I'll set aside some of my piano lesson money to make sure we can budget well for the trip and not feel that we have too careful to enjoy it. We'll probably do something similar ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, and probably around February we'll be back to our old selves again.

As a family, we are barely over the poverty line at less than $24,000 a year, assuming we both manage to bring in $1k a month. Our kids are well fed, have plenty of toys, go to a less-than-perfect but good daycare where they're learning a lot, and in spite of my job situation (or lack of) I'm using my free time to pursue my dreams and possibly work up to something that will help me provide for my family the way they deserve.

The point is, we do a LOT with very little and have even considered the possibility of another child. Our two kids are not really that much of a drain on us, and we can still take care of them and have a little fun every now and then, though we have to give up a lot of little things for the occasional big thing, and the sacrifices we make really aren't sacrifices because they aren't things that really matter, only minor disruptions of our routine that we really don't mind. They don't care if we're in the middle of a trailer park and they don't miss the big 5-bedroom house we used to have.

Really, if kids are such a drain, and we have 2 living barely above poverty, why is it people who DO have money don't think they can afford many more? 4, maybe 5 kids? These are the kind of people you WANT cranking out babies because you can generally expect them to instill the same values and work ethic in them, and that's a good thing for everyone in the long run. I just fail to see how hard it is. I think people MAKE it hard, and there's no need for that.

This post explains why the article is wrong.

That is a very general assertion. Please present evidence.

ruveyn