American Forum

They call it the dumbing of America -- a cultural shift in which forces driven by digital media are distracting us, alienating us from others and contributing to “junk thought.” More than 40 percent of young Americans report not reading a single book last year, and a popular television show is, “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” Others say we’re entering a new age of enlightenment in which all are part of the conversation and groundbreaking ideas are growing exponentially. Expect a lively discussion from panelists Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason; Professor Kathryn Montgomery, author of Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet; Andy Carvin, senior strategist for online communities at National Public Radio; and Josh Hatch, multimedia producer, USA Today.

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Tags: american, communication, digital, forum, ignorance, intellect, intelligence, internet, jacoby, media

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Permalink Reply by Jacquie Davis on April 1, 2009 at 10:23pm: In listening to Susan Jacoby, for whom I hold great admiration, I worry that she is being a tiny bit closed minded. It sounds to me like one of her concerns is intellectural rigor, as unshaped, shall I say, by the Internet. It is quite true, obviously, that we can become horribly distracted by the Internet. At the same time, it can be used in the same way as people use the newspaper and a library. You can click on a link, e.g., and go to another piece of information about which you may not have had any informaiton before. If I go on looking at Walt Whitman, e.g., I can find links to Presidents, to the Civil War, to other writers, to schools, to other poets, to Greenwich Village, the links are endless. I can learn of connections to other things to which I may not have had a clue. I worry that those of us over 50 are concerned that the Internet spells the end of intellectual rigor.

Here's an anecdote. I read to my daughter every day for many years. At the age of 21, she is most typical. She is in college, she spends a frightening amount of time texting, on Facebook, etc. However, she also happens to have a job that has spells of quiet time. She has come to learn to like reading for pleasure - for almost the first time. So she looks to me and to friends to recommend books. She recently picked up some Dashiell Hammett!

I think that intellectual rigor, and the love of learning, combined with the diligence of following information from place to place, is something that has to be taught to our children, and then let them run with it and re-discover at their own right time. There is a certain amount of elitism, in which Susan's book Age of American Unreason she rails against, evidenced in pitting the written medium against the Internet.

I recently discovered Facebook - I found high school friends with whom I have a passing friendship/acquantainceship now. There is no mistake that this is what it is. There is no pretense at a deep love. But learning things about someone one hasn't heard of or seen in 40 years adds value to my life. We can't know where these casual conversations can lead us. But it enriches my life and alters my perspective to a degree to have come into contact with these people again, being separated by time and miles.

To shut up about this, I want to remind us all that we must embrace the future and do our very best to help shape it. Make our offering to it, throw it against the wall, and invariably, something will stick, if it is made of the right stuff.