A digital culture saturated with blogs, text messaging, and iPods is to blame for the stunted intellectual development of teen-agers and college students, an Emory University English professor says.
“Digital culture conspires against young people in their intellectual development,” said Mark Bauerlein, author of the book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (Or, Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30), during a lecture Nov. 19 at the University of Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Pope Center for Higher Education Policy and UNC-CH College Libertarians sponsored the event.
“There is an opportunity cost,” he said. “All the time you spend on your blog is time not spent practicing a musical instrument, studying a foreign language, reading more U.S. history, keeping up with politics or what’s going on in government, and so on … it’s a question of crowding out other activities that are more intellectually productive.”
Few college students read books beyond their assigned coursework or have meaningful interactions with professors outside the classroom, Bauerlein said. “College should be more than just showing up, reading the books, doing the exams, and writing the papers,” he said.
There has been a sea change in reading habits among college students, Bauerlein said. “In 1982, 18- to 24-year-olds formed one of the most active, avid reading groups in the entire country,” he said. “Twenty years later, 18- to 24-year-olds had sunk to the least active, least avid reading group in the country except for age 75 and older. That’s a huge shift in a fundamental and longstanding activity.”
The National Survey of Student Engagement found that only 24 percent of freshmen read no books outside coursework during the last 12 months, he said, and about half had read one to four books. “This is a really low figure for college students — people who have done really well in high school and who have gone on to higher education,” he said.
Bauerlein blamed the book shunning on the rise of technological mediums that divert students’ attention from intellectual pursuits and isolate them in their peer groups. “This is what the digital tools have done: They have made peer-to-peer contact 24/7,” he said. “It goes all the way into your bedroom, and it’s with you all the time. This means that you are always aware of one another. Someone could be reading your personal blog at any time and commenting on it.”
He suggested that teen-agers have heroes outside the popular kids in high school and be mentored by older adults. “It gives you perspective, and it’s a relief from the intense peer pressure of the high school,” he said.
Despite the controversial subject, the crowd of about 50 in attendance sat quietly through the lecture. Students expressed both agreement and disagreement with Bauerlein’s premise to The Daily Tar Heel afterward.
“I get a lot of emails from young people, a lot of students, that contain frequent four-letter words, and some 12-letter words as well,” Bauerlein said.
David N. Bass is an associate editor of Carolina Journal.