So I was perusing Barnes and Noble when I had perceived a peculiar book protruding out of my Mathematics section. I quickly procured the culprit for further interrogation when I noticed that it was a book detailing why people underneath the age of 30 are stupid. Baffled, I had to prod further, which promptly led to me polishing the book off on the spot.
At first I was highly skeptical seeing as we are, in fact, the information generation. In addition to that we score higher on IQ tests than ever before. However, the book happened to boast a very wide base of statistical information (probably why it was in the math section) that made it hard for me stop reading. Though, a lot of these statistics (there were a lot so I'm not going to list them) really seemed like they were only partial evidence and neglected other information. It's fairly easy to get information to fit a theory (instead of the other way around), after all. After reading it I do find a lot of the points made hard to refute.
Affirmative
There was a lot of stress on the way that today's youth allocates their time. Natural, seeing as most of us are guilty of watching too much television or playing too many unproductive games. However, because we prefer playing those games and watching those movies instead of furthering our education the industries have reflected this behavior. This is a poisonous downward trend, but should eventually taper off.
Negative
Ugh, books, really? I know I'm writing about a book right now and clearly I do read books, but this book really stressed that people don't read books anymore. A large amount of that statistic could easily be attributed to all the alternative sources we have. Fiction is easily replaced by stories within video games and movies, which are definitely becoming more intellectual. Nonfiction is even more easily replaced by Wikipedia. Furthermore, games require one to make decisions and plan out their agenda whereas books do not. Books are becoming obsolete.
Especially classics. They're classics. We have vastly superior contemporaries. Screw the 20's.
Affirmative
Nobody really seems to know much about what's going on with the government or with the world in general. That sorta segregates the youth from political decisions that they would have otherwise been able to be a part of. We, our generation, is going to be running this country and every single city in it. Look at your friends, which one do you trust to do it? Got one? Good, now how many more can you count?
Negative
This book also tends to focus on the USA in regards to other countries. Which is kinda weird to me seeing as we have all kinda meshed into a single community. One that fights with their neighbors, but a single community nonetheless. We have very good methods of information exchange and communication that allow us to easily breach cultural and physical boundaries when it is wished. Segregation of countries is a very classical approach to demographics.
Extremes
There is also the total exclusion of extremes in this book. Back in the 50's if somebody wanted to be a mathematician then they have a physically limited ability to study math. This is not true in the information age. If somebody wanted to be an amazing mathematician, there is nothing stopping them from knowing it all. If somebody really wanted to become an expert at absolutely anything they wouldn't be stopped, and because of this capacity the chances that somebody will develop an extreme ability with a given subject is bound to be much better.
Check this book out if you'd like, but take it with a grain of salt and don't be too quick to internalize all the skewed presentation of the statistics.
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