TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
The dumbing of America. Thank ypou social media and the internet. https://fortune.com/2026/02/21/lapt...time-cellphone-bans-standardized-test-scores/
The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents
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I'm not totally surprise by the outcome and part of the issue is probably related to how the technology is being used. This is in part my rant about 'ai'; instead of being a tool to collect data people can then evaluate it becomes a tool that provides the answer true or false with the reader unable to distinguish.
It is a real problem with students becoming less able to think and reason and unfortunately opens them up further to conspiracy theory and other bullcrap.
It is a real problem with students becoming less able to think and reason and unfortunately opens them up further to conspiracy theory and other bullcrap.
Our generation isn't shining when it comes to critical thought. I meet people my age who talk all kinds of crazy conspiracies and cult stuff, and the kids I worked with were far more critical than their grandparents and often their parents seem to be. I'm not in the US and the pressures are different, but they are similar.
On the flip side, a lot of kids can code, and we couldn't. Or I couldn't, though I did do punch card programs.
I'm concerned, but we're probably echoing an age old thing. All old people think young people are following stupid paths. Some generations, they are, but tech remains a tool. I worked with kids who used it brilliantly, and others who hid in their parents' basements gaming, and are probably still down there. I suspect the ratios would have been similar with textbooks, though it seems undeniable that attention spans have slipped.
Along with tech, there is also the issue of drug culture, often embraced by the parents and doing a lot of harm to the kids.
On the flip side, a lot of kids can code, and we couldn't. Or I couldn't, though I did do punch card programs.
I'm concerned, but we're probably echoing an age old thing. All old people think young people are following stupid paths. Some generations, they are, but tech remains a tool. I worked with kids who used it brilliantly, and others who hid in their parents' basements gaming, and are probably still down there. I suspect the ratios would have been similar with textbooks, though it seems undeniable that attention spans have slipped.
Along with tech, there is also the issue of drug culture, often embraced by the parents and doing a lot of harm to the kids.
TwoTankAmin
Fish Maniac
The problems with old age and mental ability is one thing, the failure of children to learn how to think is another.
I went through college by writing papers rather than taking course with a lot of tests and exams. I rarely failed to get a top grade on any of my papers. I also smoked a lot of pot etc. in those days and it did not seem to impair my ability to think or write.
There were no computers, cell phones nor internet then. We learned how to think, to do research and to get smarter. I cannot tell you how many hours I pent in the college library researching and reading. I learned how to commit information to memory.
With the internet and how AI now works what kids are learning is they need not learn anything because the answer is always there on their phone etc. it doesn't matter what the quality of that info is only that it be there.
The one thing I do know for sure is there is nothing so full of itself as a teenager or young 20s person. It took me a lot of years of learning to understand that the more I learned the less I really knew. This was simply because the more I learned the more I discovered that I did not know and how much was left to learn.
I also came to realize that I did not have an internal hard drive and I could not remember everything I learned. What I did come to undertsand was it was not so important to have all the answer in my head. it was enough to know where to find the answer. What book pr paper held the detailed information I was likely to need to use down the road.
having a digital resource on hand all the time doesn't make us smarter. it makes us less likely to learn. Why learn stuff when a button push gives you the answer without having to do the work? And no knowing makes us lass smart.
For years I have been saying that what makes the common person uncommon is common sense. AI has no sense at all and neither do those people who fail to learn the sort of things needed to have common sense.
At least when I was learning I knew if I read it in a book or a research paper that intelligent experienced people had determined if the information was worthy of being published. Today, any fool can put anything they want online. But, the problem is not the fools who put this crap there, it is the fools who are too lazy to learn and are willing to believe anything no matter how ridiculous. These sort of people abound in populations across the globe. This does not bode well for mankind.
I consider myself very lucky to be near the end of my life. My genes are good but my health is not so good. So, I expect it is a coin toss if I make it another decade. My hope is that what I see coming for mankind will not befall us before my time is up. However, I would be very worried for my grand children if I had any.
I went through college by writing papers rather than taking course with a lot of tests and exams. I rarely failed to get a top grade on any of my papers. I also smoked a lot of pot etc. in those days and it did not seem to impair my ability to think or write.
There were no computers, cell phones nor internet then. We learned how to think, to do research and to get smarter. I cannot tell you how many hours I pent in the college library researching and reading. I learned how to commit information to memory.
With the internet and how AI now works what kids are learning is they need not learn anything because the answer is always there on their phone etc. it doesn't matter what the quality of that info is only that it be there.
The one thing I do know for sure is there is nothing so full of itself as a teenager or young 20s person. It took me a lot of years of learning to understand that the more I learned the less I really knew. This was simply because the more I learned the more I discovered that I did not know and how much was left to learn.
I also came to realize that I did not have an internal hard drive and I could not remember everything I learned. What I did come to undertsand was it was not so important to have all the answer in my head. it was enough to know where to find the answer. What book pr paper held the detailed information I was likely to need to use down the road.
having a digital resource on hand all the time doesn't make us smarter. it makes us less likely to learn. Why learn stuff when a button push gives you the answer without having to do the work? And no knowing makes us lass smart.
For years I have been saying that what makes the common person uncommon is common sense. AI has no sense at all and neither do those people who fail to learn the sort of things needed to have common sense.
At least when I was learning I knew if I read it in a book or a research paper that intelligent experienced people had determined if the information was worthy of being published. Today, any fool can put anything they want online. But, the problem is not the fools who put this crap there, it is the fools who are too lazy to learn and are willing to believe anything no matter how ridiculous. These sort of people abound in populations across the globe. This does not bode well for mankind.
I consider myself very lucky to be near the end of my life. My genes are good but my health is not so good. So, I expect it is a coin toss if I make it another decade. My hope is that what I see coming for mankind will not befall us before my time is up. However, I would be very worried for my grand children if I had any.
fishorama
Fish Addict
I grew up reading books for info & just for fun. Libraries were places of both. TV, all 3 or 4 channels, could be fun but as a younger sibling I rarely got to choose. Encyclopedias & PBS gave us "facts" that were true at the time. When we knew more, we understood new & different "facts". Science evolves!!
Outdoor play was also something we did all the time, tag, bike riding, exploring the woods, etc. Now kids seem to only entertain themselves with videos; no screen = no fun except for a few organized sports. Some kids can & do use more of their intellect without guidance. Some need a little push in the right directions & some just want to veg & out or be entertained most of the time & parents allow that. Learning basic life skills like cooking, cleaning, banking & saving money for a goal seems to have gone by the wayside.
My attention span is not the same as it once was, nor is my spelling, lol, but at least I still read for fun & real info, not just what some random internet person's posts. It takes work & research to sift through all the crap available online. Consider the source should be the mantra but sadly it is not.
Outdoor play was also something we did all the time, tag, bike riding, exploring the woods, etc. Now kids seem to only entertain themselves with videos; no screen = no fun except for a few organized sports. Some kids can & do use more of their intellect without guidance. Some need a little push in the right directions & some just want to veg & out or be entertained most of the time & parents allow that. Learning basic life skills like cooking, cleaning, banking & saving money for a goal seems to have gone by the wayside.
My attention span is not the same as it once was, nor is my spelling, lol, but at least I still read for fun & real info, not just what some random internet person's posts. It takes work & research to sift through all the crap available online. Consider the source should be the mantra but sadly it is not.
plebian
Fish Crazy
That's for damn sure. And nowhere is that more true than in this hobby. It's absolutely unbelievable. It's partly due to how little real research has/is being done, and how little we know in general about animal behavior, aquatic microbiology, etc... but still.
Another part of the problem, and not just among sites publishing information about tropical fish, is the way web site creators steal from each other using "copy and paste" so they don't have to do any real work themselves.
plebian
Fish Crazy
It also needs to be noted that's it's not just the overuse or misuse of technology that's at fault. It's the degradation of educational curricula in general that's been ongoing at least since the early 90s. Parent's complaining to school boards because their brats had been disciplined for disrupting class, or claiming racial or gender bias because they received poor grades.
The topic is way too complex to get into on a forum, but there it is. As an aside, I've been telling people for over decade that "smartphones" are making people stupid. Truthfully, it began earlier. I remember watching people talking on their cell phones while driving. I actually watched someone drive right through a red light doing just that, completely unaware of what they just did. I once complained about it to a good friend when he got on his cell while driving. I can tell you he didn't take it kindly.
I agree with TwoTankAdmin. I'm glad I'm near the end of life. I fear for what the future holds. Even without the potential technological dangers, human overpopulation has completely screwed the natural world. I saw it coming almost 50 years ago and decided it was best to not have children.
On the other hand, it probably doesn't really matter. Nature will take care of things one way or another. I've been tossing around the idea that robots are the next stage in evolution. It's not an original idea. It was first proposed by Samuel Butler more than a hundred and fifty years ago.
The topic is way too complex to get into on a forum, but there it is. As an aside, I've been telling people for over decade that "smartphones" are making people stupid. Truthfully, it began earlier. I remember watching people talking on their cell phones while driving. I actually watched someone drive right through a red light doing just that, completely unaware of what they just did. I once complained about it to a good friend when he got on his cell while driving. I can tell you he didn't take it kindly.
I agree with TwoTankAdmin. I'm glad I'm near the end of life. I fear for what the future holds. Even without the potential technological dangers, human overpopulation has completely screwed the natural world. I saw it coming almost 50 years ago and decided it was best to not have children.
On the other hand, it probably doesn't really matter. Nature will take care of things one way or another. I've been tossing around the idea that robots are the next stage in evolution. It's not an original idea. It was first proposed by Samuel Butler more than a hundred and fifty years ago.
A couple of times, I was threatened with legal action when kids didn't do their work and failed classes. A lot of families who could afford (or were) lawyers sent legal letters to teachers at the college level, to try to influence marks. We had one kid who had been given incompletes in I believe 34 of 35 classes he had taken over 3 years, because the cost of lawyers to contest was too high, and since he never did the work, an incomplete was easier than a fail. He didn't get the credits to graduate anyway.
It was always wealthy families playing these games. Most of the time, parents or close family members were lawyers. We kept good records and soldiered on. We had parents saying the system failed boys, but the boys often didn't work, while the girls had a work ethic. In every generation, there are spoiled kids.
52% of entries to our college were male. 56 percent of graduates were female. Most boys dropped out in the first 3 weeks when they saw the workload and expectations, and for many, that clashed with playing video games. Those stats were from the early 2000s, and I moved to the High School sector after. I haven't looked into how that played out.
Do I blame technology? I think it has more to do with society's attitudes. Learning is devalued and kids dutifully fall in line with that. Tech makes it easy to play forever, as long as you can afford it. It demolishes attention spans in the less bright kids, while the smart ones have the sense to escape its ill effects. Or so it appeared to me.
It was always wealthy families playing these games. Most of the time, parents or close family members were lawyers. We kept good records and soldiered on. We had parents saying the system failed boys, but the boys often didn't work, while the girls had a work ethic. In every generation, there are spoiled kids.
52% of entries to our college were male. 56 percent of graduates were female. Most boys dropped out in the first 3 weeks when they saw the workload and expectations, and for many, that clashed with playing video games. Those stats were from the early 2000s, and I moved to the High School sector after. I haven't looked into how that played out.
Do I blame technology? I think it has more to do with society's attitudes. Learning is devalued and kids dutifully fall in line with that. Tech makes it easy to play forever, as long as you can afford it. It demolishes attention spans in the less bright kids, while the smart ones have the sense to escape its ill effects. Or so it appeared to me.
so, this is not really new ( the attitudes, and way of life... not the tech ) I'm old now, but believe it or not, I was a boy, back in school... not stupid, but "lazy", "too busy", or "not interested"... I rarely ( almost never ) did daily work, I always received passing grades on tests, and better than that on subjects that interested me... so that "lifestyle" is not new... it was 50 ish years ago for me... would you say that teachers that let me pass with no daily work failed me??? or were they smart enough to realize I had enough rudimentary knowledge on the subjects, to pass the tests... early on, I had teachers that made threats, I assume in an effort to change my learning habits, but in the end, they always moved me along... I only had one teacher who claimed he would stop me from graduating high school, if I didn't do "his" daily work... and reflecting in my old age, I don't think he was any smarter, or any better at teaching, than any of the teachers that passed me on...
back to topic, I'm not as worried about the lack of thought, from our youth, as much as I am, by the barrage of miss information available for them to sort out, and the way social media enables mob rule, without any thought..
back to topic, I'm not as worried about the lack of thought, from our youth, as much as I am, by the barrage of miss information available for them to sort out, and the way social media enables mob rule, without any thought..
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