A Digital Dumbing Down?

Borring

Get Somestuff with a little more action, no one cares about texting snd all that other junk.

Evolution intellectual?

I agree with everything about your article until you came to the point of understanding evolution. Anyone who studies science can see that there is no basis for the "Theory" of evolution. Scientists contrived this theory and have been trying to compiled evidence to support their theory instead of analyzing the evidence itself. Mutations which are the proponent of how animals supposedly change from one species to another have always resulted in a disadvange to the animal usually resulting in death. Mutations are a result of a loss of information in the DNA. But according to the Darwinian theory, these mutations necessary for a change in the animal would need new information added to the DNA. Scientists don't address where this new information comes from. There has never been any transitional forms of animals found in the fossil record and Darwin himself said that if they were not found, there would be a problem with his evolutionary theory. Again, another way of dumbing down our society.

A Digital Dumbing Down

Dear Jay Tolson!

A really serious insight in the way our society is moving.

Think of democracy.. all are equal. This is basically untrue. Actually a part of all are equal not the whole. Secondly, the capitalism, unnecessary extra value to money power and its associated advertisement systems, are basically untrue. This un-truthness is making is orienting mind to these things only and not to what you call wisdom and analytical mind.

As I see now these written words will change to pictures and videos, which will show the picture of wisdom and we will be lost. Abstract thinking is the real loss.

Thank. Keep contributing

good day

Are we dumbing down or designing up?

Is the technology really dumbing us down or is it simply changing the way we think.

I've been exploring a similar topic this year as it relates to music composition and production (Link here: http://criticalnoise.blogspot.com/2008/09/musician-under-influence-of-technology.html)

Based on my own experience (I've been programming music using computers since the early eighties) the influence of the Graphical User Interface has essentially turned modern music composition from a primarily aural-centric task into something resembling a design process –that is, today you can find composers who visualize music via digital audio workstations. For them (and I am one of them) sound isn't just something one hears, but something one can see (on the screen).

Others have called this an Age of Design, and I suspect design, via technology, has endowed all of us who have lived through the shift a visual and process oriented sensibility that didn't exist in other professions before.

Gothic Town

That won't be a gothic town? Or these people from gothiclover.com will rush in!

It's the conversion of the materials of history into nothing but bits of information"

When I went to school, "social studies" was read, spelling words came from English and Social Studies text, and therefore, learning from history became a huge part of our education.

It is the educators that dimished the importance of history. History, or the "old" social studies classes is important and I agree, more important than "bits of information".

But let's not "blame" the internet. The internet, used properly can provide a wealth of information. Supreme Court rulings can be read, rather than someones interpetation of the ruling. Tapes of actual events are available for viewing, allowing the student to "judge for themselves".

My son researched the Kilo vs New London Supreme Court case for a paper. Newspaper articles from New London were available online, articles that would not have been accessable without the internet.

"Time to read" is definitely hard to find, not only for students, but for parents. Moving to the suburbs cuts into "free time" because of the travel time to get to work. Technology and was supposed to make our jobs easier - I think we are actually busier

It’s funny to me

It’s funny to me how some people look down at the resources found on the internet. One of the first things my mother taught me when I was doing a report as a child was to not believe everything you read. This is something that I have heard a thousand times growing up. In my opinion, the internet is another resource people can use to educate themselves. Maybe what we should be worrying about is instilling the same behaviors of investigating in our children. Instead of just, “Don’t believe everything you read”, we should add, “…and make sure you dig deeper than your first 3 hits”.

Ever since the printing press was first used people have been deciding what gets printed and what doesn’t. The internet helps with this but someone still decides what your top hits will be. It’s based on more than just popularity; advertising has a lot to do with it as well. People still look to the same major providers of news to tell them what’s going on in the world. They just do it online now, and have the option to look elsewhere to read other peoples opinions and decide which view they agree with.

So read my opinion and dig deeper.

Dumbing down? More like addiction. To check news and sports. To check stocks and funds. To check porn. To check missed calls. To check IMs and text messages. To check e-mail. To check social network pages. To check, to check, to check, as though life is THERE---when life is really HERE (wherever you are standing.)