Because they're young
Do you remember how stupid you were when you were a teen-ager? Or all that you didn't know -- and thought you did? And the skills you gained by holding back on foolish comments? Oh, the now-old guy in this picture? He once wrote: "I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now.''
Do you remember how stupid you were when you were a teen-ager? Or all that you didn't know -- and thought you did? And the skills you gained by holding back on foolish comments? Oh, the now-old guy in this picture? He once wrote: "I was so much older then/I'm younger than that now.''
15 comments:
He's got to be kidding...
Anyways, now, he isn't just generalizing who's dumb, but now, the content too! Dumb could mean anything. This generation might be "dumber" at storing thousands of facts that we won't ever need to know, but the previous generation (a.k.a his generation) might be "dumber" at computers and current technology. You can't just make the word dumb or smart relevant to one thing.Another thing to add is that older people may have more EXPERIENCE, but they may not be necessarily "smarter". Also, for most, we even learned in class that when you are younger, your brain is more flexible, therefore can absorb more knowledge. But then, there are other factors that come into play. Younger people may have the capability of absorbing more, but some don't care enough to do it. But the thing is, older people can have expanded minds too; younger people can have stone minds as well. It varies on the person. For example, my grand mother and grand father. My grandfather's mind is seriously inflexible; he's incapable of learning new concepts and refuses to try. But my grandmother strives to learn more about everything, especially technology. In fact, she even signed up for a computer class! Bottom line is, just because we are young, it doesn't mean we are dumb, or whatever type of "dumb" he means.
“Never failure, always a lesson”- I think you definitively should make mistakes when you are young, because if you live a sheltered life you won’t know ‘what’s coming’. “And the skills you gained by holding back on foolish comments”, I think being a teenager is sort of like the time where you can make mistakes, (well not like murdering someone or not finishing high school), so that you are able to learn from them. Maybe part of the reason he thinks we are so dumb is that we’re young and we are at the age where we make a lot of mistakes, and it would be better to judge if our generation is stupid in twenty year when we are 20-50. Of course seniors and elder people will be smarter because they have more experience and they are wiser. I do agree that we are more lazy, and dumber in some ways, but we are young and everyone does dumb things when they are young. We are great with technology and smart in that way, yet we are over-using it and use it to make everything easier and faster. It really bothers we when people deny that we are becoming lazier…
My dad tells my brother, “Move out when you still know everything.” We deny everything, won’t take blames, and everything is about yourself, like Mr. Oickle says it all about “me”. And I agree. There are a lot of skills we don’t develop until later. In a recent study it was discovered that the frontal lobes of the brain continues to change during the early 20's, and is the last part of the brain the develops. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that is responsible for reasoning and problem solving. The biggest and most important changes to the parts of the brain, occur in adolescence and are responsible for impulse-control, judgment, decision-making, planning, organization and involved in many other functions like emotion. This area of the brain with is the prefrontal cortex does not fully mature until around age 25.
I had to read this post twice to see if he was actually saying we are the dumbest generation because we are young. Everyone from the last generation was once young in their life, so I don't know what Mark is talking about.
If Mark literally means we are dumb because we're young, I respectfully disagree. We aren't dumb; we just don't have as much experience on this planet as his generation.
Like Jeremy stated, well unquestionably, we aren't as smart as the last generation because they're older. And our brains aren't fully developed yet. For example, our prefrontal cortex isn't developed yet, so we use our emotions for decision making.
I disagree with Mr. Baurlein. Just because we use “because we’re young” as an excuse to make mistakes doesn’t mean that this generation is actually dumber than the last. They probably had one of these sayings just like this generation. I think this is for one, is a poor assumption on Mr Baurlein’s part but also a huge generalization.
I don’t think that using that excuse is too bad. I don’t use it, but it does not show signs of “dumbness”. I think that making mistakes while you’re “young” is a good thing. It’ll make sure that later when you’re an adult you won’t make the same mistake that might not be appropriate for adults. . So maybe now those little mistakes Mr Baurlein records in his book and gathers enough of them to right a 200 page book and stamps on it the words “You’re the dumbest generation”. Well, in the long run help us as become better adults. BUT, it is so important to learn from these mistakes. But also taking the right choices is just as important. Sure you are young now and can make some mistakes but that does not mean you can’t be responsible for some of those bad choices. If you over use this excuse or put these types of thought in your head than you won’t understand that taking the right choices in the beginning is the most important thing. If we don’t learn than Mr Baurlein has the right to call us the dumbest generation. And who’s to say that making more mistakes as a kid or teenager is bad. Maybe it is but I don’t think it goes as far as being 1of the 8 reasons for us being “The Dumbest Generation”.
I disagree with Mark Bauerlein obviously. For multiple reasons, one of the big ones would be the generalizations. I also agree with Bauerlein in a way. When you are a teen you are trying to figure out who you are. Sometimes you make the wrong decision, but those mistakes add to who you are. After all you lean from your mistakes. Some people make a wrong decision because of peer pressure. Being forced into something they really don't want to do. Such as smoking and drugs. Hopefully those people figure out what they are doing to their lives and stop. But in the end its really up to them.
first, I have no idea what this guy is talking about with that quote, so I'm just going to ignore that. Anyway, I think people think teenagers are stupid because of the things they do. And adults look back and think how stupid they were when they were a teenager. But, I think teenagers make all these choices and do these things because they are trying to find out who they are, they're going to start their lives soon and they just want to fit in and find them selves.
This whole story is about us being dumb and how any generation before should not trust us, but then everyone is dumb anyways while being a teenager??? So what exactly is Bauerlein trying to say, that we are all teenagers so that we make mistakes, and this book is just about how they make mistakes, but they will eventually get smarter. ?!?!?!? What a great way to end the book.... We can seriously write a book about his generation and all the mistakes they've made.
I agree that when he says, “Do you remember how stupid you were when you were a teen-ager? Or all that you didn't know -- and thought you did?” Yes, you always hear people say this, and it's true that we probably one day grow up and realized we didn't know anything we really thought we did. Truthfully in my opinion this is a horrible way to end the book. I feel it just somewhat ends on saying it's ok, you're teenagers this is why your generation is so dumb. Well then so is yours!!! I really don't know why he ended it this way I am actually quite annoyed like come on, pull up some facts, maybe.... Just kidding! But I'm serious about the conclusion part....
So Bauerlein is making a huge generalization by saying that just because we are young, we are dumb. If he is talking about the dumb referring to quantity of knowledge yes we are dumb ,we are less than half of Bauerlein's generations' age, our brains hasn't even finished developing yet. Plus they have much more experience than us. Or are we dumb because we do dumb things? Well making mistakes when we are young we help prevent us from making mistakes when we are older, Bauerlein is yet again making the good become the bad.
But 30 years later who knows we might be smarter than they were when they were our age.
Bottom line, yes I agree that we may be dumber now but once our brains develop... and making mistakes is a good thing while we are young.
I have to disagree on this one. He is saying we are dumb because we are young. He thinks that teens are stupid to the things we do. Well like Rachel said we do what we do because we are still developing and we are trying to figure out who we are and what we want to do in our life. This is a huge generalization about teens. He says "do you remember how stupid you were when you were a teenager?" and "or all that you did t know -- and thought you did?" Well just because we dont know something it doesn't mean that we are dumb. It just means that maybe we haven been informed about that certain thing. Like Eric said, he has been around much longer than we have so he will know stuff that we don't, but that doesn't mean we can learn it.
Oddly enough , i actually agree with Mark when he says "Do you remember how stupid you were when you were a teenager?".
Like don't you remember when you were 10 years old and you did so much stupid things , or thought that your cool by doing a certain things.
But i don't think you can judge us just cause we do dumb things. Like every single generation was like that. So if he says that one of the reasons why we're dumb is because of this, then we have to right to say that generation before us is dumb too.
You know, I’d LOVE to disagree with this. (You know I would.) But I think he's right again. The only thing that makes me agree with this is the sheer ARROGENCE and IGNORANCE of the average person in our generation. Ignorance and arrogance....... possibly the absolute worst combination you could ever get because while you have no knowledge, you think you know everything. So you'll make a huge fuss over it because everyone THINKS. THEY'RE. RIGHT. It's a lose-lose situation because you look like an idiot if someone proves you wrong but even if you ARE right, its highly improbable anyone will listen to you because of their unwillingness to accept defeat.
It’s natural to be a bit arrogant because you're a teenager but right now, it's getting really out of hand. Whats worse, is most of the time, the people who are right, are the people nobody will listen to. In today’s world, it almost comes up to "whoever is the most arrogant, egotistic and ignorant, is the person everyone listen’s to." Now, that’s just a generalization. But the way I see it, that how it happens most of the time.
This is about the sole most infuriating flaw of our generation to me. People refuse to learn, then make something up and try to get people to buy into it. The arrogance. The ignorance. Just plain infuriating. Let’s leave it at that.
In response to the first bit of what Claire’s comment said: when you said "we need to make mistakes" I agree with that 100% but I don't think these are the mistakes we should be making. Rather than viewing them as mistakes, we view them as being right. And that COULD become permanent.
You know, I read a couple of the comments, and I think I overlooked one of the aspects. He IS essentially saying "we're dumb because we're young". Our brains aren’t fully developed and the ignorance WILL fade with time. As of now, I still find it infuriating, but it WILL go away. Teenagers from all generations were like us once.
So, in conclusion for the final time. We are not the dumbest generation. While we have developed bad qualities, we haven't started any wars. We are also getting drastically smarter. I think Mr. Bauerlien just resents us because the vast majority of us are infuriating. Our generation specializes in different areas than his does. And thats what makes the human kind move forward. Where do you think we'd be right now if nobody ever stopped throwing rocks around and specialized in making spears and shelters? We vastly specialize in tech, which is how we can move society forward. Thats where it was headed anyway right? He shouldn't lose faith in us just because we can't specialize in the same thing he does. While I respect his opinions, I believe there is an aspect of it he didn't observe.
Dumbest generation: concluded. Thank you for reading.
I can't believe that this guy is actually accusing ALL of us young people that we all make stupid decisions. Sure everyone does once in awhile and some people make them more than others... But he has no right to label us all as dumb. And I agree with Rohini's comment that just because we are young doesn't mean we are dumb. I know that in middle school and high school there are alot of decisions to make and sometimes we don't know which one is the right one to choose. Also he shouldn't pinpoint just us here because some older people can make stupid mistakes and decisions as well. It's not just us.
Okay, so truthfully, I think this really applies to everyone and not just our generation, my parents even said looking back they did things that they now think was stupid, so if he's going to criticize us, he might as well criticize the whole human race. As when we are young, we are still learning and our brain basically changes every day. We learn BEST by making mistakes and learning from them, just as everyone else said. If we didn't make mistakes, we don't know if there is a better solution. But yes, we are dumb basically when we are young, but not because we are going to grow up dumb and ignorant, it's because our brain hasn't reached it's full capacity yet, we still have so much to fill. When we are older we will be a lot smarter and that happens to everyone. So bottom line, I think we all are some-what dumb when we are young but that's not because of the technology or other issues, it's just because we grow and we don't start really smart and go down, it's the opposite. And if we are really that dumb and are at rock bottom, at least we can only go up and get smarter.
So for the book, I guess a lot of the statements in his book were true, it just didn't mean we were dumb because we did that or we didn't, it was just a statement, that a lot of times was to generalized.
ok this is ridiculous! he's just saying all us teens are stupid!!! yes, alot of people have bad mistakes in their teen years, but that's just because (like rachel said) we are still developing and trying to figure out who we are. like eric said, our brains are not fully developed here! you, mr oickle, have even told us that at our age, we make all of our decisions based on our emotions.
Post a Comment