Jaywalking: A pre-taped segment where Leno asks people questions about current news and other topics in public areas around Los Angeles (usually Hollywood Boulevard or Universal Studios). Most responses are outrageously incorrect.

Point #1: Despite the fact that Bauerlein is a Director of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts, it seems he hasn’t done much in the way of secondary research–a little Googling would suffice–on this topic because one of the traits Millennials are best known for is their social consciousness. We’re not as militant or loud as the Boomers but we’re a far cry from the apathy of Gen X. Young voters are an increasingly important voting bloc and anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to the Democratic primaries knows that a significant portion of the credit for Obama’s success is the result of his connection with the under-30 set’s idealism and action. On a personal note, I find the assertion that Millennials are out of touch especially laughable since this was recently published:
http://ucdavismagazine.ucdavis.edu/issues/sp08/beyond_bottomline.html

Point #3: Champy’s been demonstrating good spelling and grammar in this post. I’ve also demonstrated my ability to spell in the above paragraph.

Point #7: “Adult realities can’t penetrate,” says Bauerlein. And this is I think where we really get to the heart of Bauerlein’s gripes about under-30s. Bauerlein, crotchety old man that he is, is just bitter that young people (supposedly) don’t give a rat’s ass about things he thinks are important. As someone who is technically an adult myself, I am going to let the cat out of the bag: being an adult has its perks but there are many, many reasons why it completely blows. Doing taxes, paying bills, having to be utterly responsible for yourself with no one else to fall back on, etc. None of these things are very fun and teenagers are totally justified in wanting to ignore this shit for as long as they can get away with it. Hell, I would if I could too.

The only points I have any sympathy for are #2-4. (I do have some reservations about some of the acts you can do in GTA4 but that doesn’t mean that video games dumb you down…see the book mentioned above).

#2: Reading entire texts of great work isn’t exactly replaceable by reading tons of blogs, news summaries, etc. I have some sympathy for him that there are benefits esp in the area of thought-provokation in the medium of the novel that may be hard to duplicate in other forms of media.

#3 Using form appropriate to the medium is good and efficient, but language that becomes too fluid can fragment society. I think examples of teens that turn in English papers in leetspeak are idiots but are exactly what he’s worried about.

#4 I think this is dangerously true in some circles actually. Being “smart” and “creative” is actually seen as a negative trait in the average high school. I’m not sure if this is more true than it used to be though.