Gen Y May End Up 'Intellectual Lightweights' Because of Technology: Pew

[Hissyspit]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/29/gen-y-may-end-up-intellectual-lightweights-because-of-technology-pew

Gen Y may end up ‘intellectual lightweights’ because of technology: Pew

By Reuters
Wednesday, February 29, 2012 3:34 EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – There is a good chance young people growing up in today’s always-wired world will eventually become bright, nimble decision makers – if they don’t wind up intellectual lightweights unable to concentrate long enough to chew over a good book.

So say 1,021 technology insiders, critics and students surveyed by the Pew Research Center who were fairly evenly split about how always-on technology will impact the teenagers and twenty-somethings of “Generation Y.”

In the survey, released on Wednesday, 55 percent agreed with a statement that in 2020 the brains of young people would be “wired” differently from those over 35, with good results for finding answers quickly and without shortcomings in their mental processes.

But 42 percent were pessimistic, agreeing with a second statement that in 2020 young technology users would be easily distracted, would lack deep thinking skills and would thirst only for instant gratification.

MORE AT LINK IF YOU ARE NOT TOO DISTRACTED TO READ IT[p]

[FreakinDJ]

1. Speculation rather then research

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

2. I don't have alot of great things to say about "Gen Y"

But they are fucking smart and masterful researchers if they have the work ethic for it. Someone with encyclopedic knowledge of research databases and what can be found where immediately on numerous subjects is more useful than my encyclopedic knowledge of several esoteric subjects.

We have a girl here who just graduated in May with a degree in economics. She was writing more than a dozen papers a year and in every single course there was an expectation that students would avail themselves of electronic research databases. When I was in college we had Lexis-Nexis and a couple science oriented databases. This kid can name twenty different services she used in school off the top of her head, why she likes certain ones better than others. That is useful, it isn't something I am going to have an opportunity to learn about at that depth and most Boomers and Xer's are oblivious to the existence of.

[exboyfil]

5. This is something I am trying to get a good read on

I remember taking Statics over the summer at Purdue. Our textbook was less than great and our instructor was not that great either. I worked harder in that class than any other class to that point, but you cannot work in a vacuum. I was unaware of Schaums outlines, and I could not afford one even if I was. Unlike later courses prior tests were not in the library. Our study group got our hands on an instructor's solution manual for a different textbook. It made a world of difference, and I dramatically improved my knowledge and performance. If I could have taken it back to the dorm with me, then I would probably have gotten an A.

Now days such information on most engineering courses to at least the junior level is readily available. I already have copies of the instructor's solution manuals for prior editions of my daughter's Chemistry, Calculus, and Physics textbooks. I have found online MIT/Berkeley courses on the same subjects to watch a different perspective in lectures. I have squirreled away solutions to various tests in these subjects. I have Schaum's and REA Problem Solvers for all three subjects.

Has the difficulty in college increased with the availability of resources?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

8. When I was an undergrad...

There didn't seem to be much of an expectation that our research would go beyond the resources available in the library or explicitly relevant primary sources. That doesn't seem to be the case now. I suppose the difficulty would depend on ones research skills.

[LadyHawkAZ]

3. tl;dr

KIDDING!

This is an odd survey. I'm not sure what the point of it was; seems like a subject for researchers, not pollsters.

[badtoworse]

4. We could be on our way to "Idiocracy"

If you haven't seen it, it's great satire.

[Trillo]

6. Couldn't get past this sentence,

"if they don’t wind up intellectual lightweights unable to concentrate long enough to chew over a good book."

I'm not generation Y, but when I went to school, lack of focus was strongly enforced, even while concentration (on the teacher) was lightly given lipservice (lipservice such as "stop daydreaming and looking out the window", when the point of our daydreaming may have been thinking about and trying to understand what the teacher had just said). We were not allowed to stay with the same classmates. We were not allowed to stay in the same schools. We were not allowed to study one subject at a time for longer than 1 hour, far less than the amount of time required to read most books. When we did develop deep concentration, the buzzer would ring and like magic, it was time to stop that concentration. We were sometimes made examples of and were expelled.

So, when anyone proposes, "intellectual lightweights" and illogically connects it to inability to concentrate for long time periods, we know the author is contradicting the important lessons learned in K-12.

[Chorophyll]

7. I don't know a whole lot of Gen Xer's or Boomers who can concentrate on a good book either.

In general, I really dislike the trend of trying to predict what a person will be like based on the year they were born. There are all kinds of other factors and variables to consider in addition to technology.

Also, conducting a survey of "technology insiders, critics, and students" is not the same as real research. They could have asked parents, bartenders, and accountants the same question and ended up with the same answers.