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As a middle school business education's teacher I find it all too amusing when I listen to my students explain how they know more about cell phones, music, video games, the president, Michael Jackson, than I. They get excited when we have discussion or debates about whether society is better with all this new technology today than it was 20 years ago when I was in high school. When I tell my students that I didn't have cellphone when I was in high school or that I didn't own an mp3 player until 3 years ago they all laugh out loud (lol). My students say things to me like "it sure was boring back when you was in school" or "I just don't know what I'd do if I didn't have a cellphone or my mp3 player.
I like to start the debate like this "you students download the most popular 250 songs off of the internet and play them in your mp3 player while back in the days we would buy one maybe two albums and listen to all the songs from that artist, not just the most popular songs". I tell them that they never get to "appreciate" a music artist because they only heard 1 or 2 of the popular songs.
This is the problem I see in our society today. Everyone jumps on the latest trend, the newest song, the hottest style, very few of us today do the research, sit down and read the books, or listen to the entire CD to really appreciate what is truly the facts or what is truly authentic. Wikipedia.com is a source, similar to that of a downloaded song in a sense because the information most of the time has not been researched. Much like a downloaded song Wikipedia.com oftentimes covers the those this that are popular at the time or those things that people feel are the "juicy details" much like the newest song.
Gone are the days of researching information using an encyclopedia because information is ever changing and what was history last year may now be a thing of the past today. Gone are the days of buying music albums and listening to the entire music CD because most people want to skip to the songs everybody says is the
"hot" one. Now a days people don't want to take the time to even read a magazine article. They rather flip through the magazine and look at the pictures.
In high school many teenagers today would say the digital age with all of this technology and information has made them smarter than adults. Most high school students have better phones than the teachers. They see their teachers in the parking lot with the hood up trying to fix that 10 year old use car, as the students drive to work in a better new model car with Navigation systems, Mp3 hookups and DVD's in the back seat to watch movies before they get to school in the mornings.
With all of this new technology our children are exposed to today I guess my question is are today's children experiencing an Higher Level of Learning or is society as a whole dumbing down?
References
Colbert, S (2006) The Word: WIkiality [Web], Retrieved from http://www.colbertnation.come/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word---wikiality
Vance, A (2010, July 31) "$200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math." Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/technology/01ping.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general
