I ran out to Barnes & Noble today to pick up Mark Bauerlein’s book, The Dumbest Generation. I took an interest in the title after reading a couple of Amanda Chapel‘s notoriously snarky comments on Twitter:

The book is clearly stirring up controvery and it’s not just on my timeline. Last week, Boston.com published a list of 8 reasons why this is the dumbest generation and the link received 2015 Diggs. As referenced by Chapel in her tweet above, the Wall Street Journal also wrote about the book while CNET mentioned it in a blog post.

It’s doesn’t surprise me that there’s this much talk about the topic since Bauerlein is essentially targeting the most vocal demographic of Americans out there – loud, opinionated, and highly communicative Generation Y-ers who he might as well rename “Generation Epic Fail.”

According to Bauerlein’s thesis, no one under the age of 30 can be trusted. I am a member of this so-called “dumbest generation”, someone who is supposedly stupefied by excessive amounts of time in front of my computer, and engrossed in activities that deplete my intellectual curiosity and impede my ability to communicate like a real human being.

Under most circumstances, I’m open to constructive criticism, but I’m having a hard time reading this book with an open mind. I want to point out that based on what I’ve seen in the introduction alone, Bauerlein’s thesis is inherently flawed because of the framework he uses to discuss his argument. To paraphrase, Bauerlein says that his book is not about the cultural attitudes and social trends of today’s youth. Instead, it is only focused on asserting the fact that intellect amongst this generation is severely lacking.

Now according to Merriam-Webster, intellect is defined as, “the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will : the capacity for knowledge.

Bauerlein argues that while this generation has a great expanse of knowledge readily available at all times, the majority fail to actually access or process it. Instead, individuals are immersed in a series of meaningless, impersonal exchanges, consisting of passed on, unprocessed bits of information. We can retrieve data whenever we want to, but our failure to recall it is a skill we sorely lack.  In other words, we are plugged-in, but mentally tuned out.

I don’t think I’ll ever accept any argument that categorizes me as being dumb or destined to fail.  That said, I’ll keep reading and look forward to the discussions that will ensue.  If you’ve read this book or plan on it, I’d love to hear what you think.

Follow up posts will happen along the way…