Stanton Champion

So after a brief delay, I thought I would follow-up on my last article about adults who think the youth of today are “dumb.” As someone who is almost but not quite 30, I figured I would reply with my own assessment about why adults aren’t so bright themselves.

Of course, these are all generalizations and many are a little sarcastic as well. Plenty of people over 30 don’t fit these descriptions, but since we’re throwing generational rotten tomatoes I figured I would fire a few myself.

1. You resist learning new things - It is my greatest fear that as I grow older I stop taking interest in new things. New stuff is fun! I don’t have time to dive into every single new website out there, but I love watching how people adopt and use things like Twitter and Facebook. I can’t wait to see what the future brings. Why do so many adults resist innovation as they get older?
2. The past wasn’t as great as you remember - In my lifetime, a vast superpower bent on my destruction has been largely tamed, vaccines have been discovered for several dangerous diseases, and a global communications network has grown to connect us all. These things and more have made the world a better place. “Simpler times” weren’t really that simple, and the reality is that almost everyone in the United States has a higher standard of living now than they did 50 years ago.
3. Young people are never good enough - Young people never meet with adult expectations, and what’s worse adults always fear our mistakes will end the world. Everyone makes mistakes, and most people rise above them while a few are left behind. This has been true for thousands of years, and today’s young people are not any different. Rather than complaining about our perceived foolishness, adults should try to mentor us instead. Most young people appreciate good advice and wisdom, especially if it’s given by people who want to work with us rather than against us.
4. You expect tomorrow’s generation to pay your bills - We have our lives to build, but if we’re also paying for your lavish decisions we’ll never succeed. Keep us in mind when you make your choices. Sometimes we just can’t afford what we want. We shouldn’t have to tell you this.
5. The unknown is scary for you - The world is full of interesting people, places, and things. Globalization has brought an encroachment of new cultures and experiences, and as a young person this is incredibly exciting. Don’t fear these realities, but embrace them. For example, when eating at a foreign restaurant, neither the food nor the people serving it are likely to kill you.
6. Don’t begrudge our choices - For a while, the news reported that Gen-Y really liked “praise” in the workplace. A lot of adults were befuddled by this, and everyone had a good laugh at our expense. Thing is, we’re used to instant feedback and constant communication. We like it. Instead of laughing at us, try to understand what we’re getting out of the proposition. We more rapidly learn from our mistakes and develop our strengths while sponging up knowledge in the process. It works! We’re coming after your jobs, after all.

Previously: You Think We’re Dumb? - Part 1, Your Logic Stinks

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It’s almost human nature to believe you’re better than those who are younger. Usually this griping is short sighted, and none of it more so than the dreck that has poured forth from Emory University professor of English Mark Bauerlein. The good professor recently wrote a new book titled The Dumbest Generation in which he complains that technology has lowered the standards of youth under 30 and made us all dumber. His eight points are neatly summarized by this feature in the Boston Globe.

Well, as a member of the under-30 crowd, I thought I would reply to his points as best as I could given my apparent lack of intelligence.

1. They make excellent “Jaywalking” targets - I’m not even sure what “jaywalking” means in this context (maybe I’m not bright enough) but supposedly we are cutoff from realities that don’t include “friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook.” However, when has any society paid much attention to realities beyond immediate human contact? Up until this century, news from around the world was scarce and we only had our immediate friends and work. Meanwhile, the Internet has brought us access to people who are exposed to more experiences and places than ever before. For example, Twitter users were on top of the Chinese earthquake before the mainstream media.
2. They don’t read books — and don’t want to, either - Poor English professor, nobody wants to read his book. Bauerlein foolishly defines book reading as a metric of intelligence rather than reading itself. People who are online do a lot of reading, and the fact that books are in decline means absolutely nothing. This argument is equivalent to me saying that the “new generation is so unsophisticated because they refuse to use horse drawn carriages and prefer the disgusting and noisy automobile.”
3. They can’t spell - The good professor should leave his Ivory Towered office and go visit a social scientist in the linguistics field (maybe none of the linguists at Emory are over 30?). What he would learn is that language is fluid and relative and that spelling is really just a social construct. If he used many of the technologies he seems to dislike, he would also realize that the amount of communicating between people has reached a level where shorthand is more convenient. While long and thoughtful letters are nice, the form has languished due to the immediacy of instant messaging. We should be grateful, however, for this rapidity because it has unleashed an avalanche of economic wealth and benefit including rampant globalization. Instead of crafting a 30 page letter to an Indian developer that takes weeks to arrive, I can have an instant message conversation now.
4. They get ridiculed for original thought, good writing - I have never once been ridiculed for my writing - other things - but never my writing. The Internet is filled with excellent writing by people under 30. Idiots are everywhere and in every generation, so perhaps Professor Bauerlein is generalizing a bit?
5. Grand Theft Auto IV, etc. - What does the success of a video game have to do with anything? The new Grand Theft Auto has been praised for its immersive style and complex game environment. Much of that game was developed by people under 30, many of whom are very entrepreneurial. $500 million in sales represents a tremendous economic exchange, creating wealth for all participants. Maybe the professor believes that a violent video game creates violent people. Unfortunately, this idea has been debunked…by actual scientists.
6. They don’t store the information - We’ve grown accustomed to the vastness of the Internet, allowing us to focus on learning the things that matter while referencing the things that don’t. Are we “dumb” because we find Wikipedia more useful than rote memorization rather than focusing on innovation and creativity which are drivers of new wealth? We can only do so much with our free time, and if I need Wikipedia to tell me the state capitals, can anyone really argue that this is bad? If so, give me a good reason.
7. Because their teachers don’t tell them so - We are never told “no” or something. This reeks of generalization, but I can’t help but wonder if the professor was ever exposed to youth? Perhaps he was hatched, thus missing out on this life phase. Teens have spent hours pointlessly communicating with peers for a long time, and it’s all part of growing up. Prior to the web, it was constant talk on the telephone. Today it’s IM. Nothing’s changed. People grow up and do fine regardless.
8. Because they’re young - The worst argument of the batch. Everyone is young at some time, and that no more means we’re the dumbest generation than you were. However, plenty of young people are enormously successful. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both founded wildly successful companies while still in college, as did Michael Dell. Google and Yahoo! emerged as Stanford PhD projects.

The youth of today are doing just fine. We should be proud of their accomplishments and encourage them to do more.

Since we’re generalizing a bit, I figured I would next write something inflammatory about why adults are “dumb.” Stay tuned!

Follow-up: You Think We’re Dumb? - Part 2, Adults are Dense too!

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Microsoft has walked from the Yahoo! deal. Michael Arrington has a good rundown on what to expect this week for Yahoo!, but here’s a summary: they’re screwed.

This deal was always the equivalent of Microsoft throwing an armed hand grenade into a crowded room. Everyone knew the grenade was about the go off, but nobody had a clue when it would happen. Would the deal get done at too low a price, forcing Yahoo’s shareholders to sue everyone in sight? Would MS go hostile, costing them and Yahoo lots of time and money? I said in a previous post that there was a huge possibility that key talent would run for the doors leaving Microsoft with nothing for their trouble. Nobody liked this merger, but once the events were set in motion the outcome was inevitably bad for everyone.

Since nothing good would have come for Microsoft from this merger (SAI just started a series titled Why Yahoo-Microsoft Will Be a Disaster), walking from the deal is probably a win for them. On the other hand, this is the the worst outcome for Yahoo!. Shareholders have been angry at their bad performance for years, and many believed this was the only way to get any kind of value out of the company. On Monday, expect the Yahoo! stock price to plummet while Microsoft’s will rise. Oh, and expect a bounty of lawsuits aimed at the Yahoo! board by angry shareholders. Yahoo! turned in a good Q1, but many believed that was smoke and mirrors. If they can’t show continuing improvement, expect even more hell to break loose later in the year.

On the other hand, this could be a new beginning for Yahoo!. Many companies have been tested by failed mergers and come out stronger, like Goodyear in the 80s. But today the Microsoft hand grenade has finally gone off and Yahoo! has a lot of cleanup ahead.

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I haven’t written anything about the Yahoo!/Microsoft deal yet, but this post on TechCrunch sums up some of the problems nicely.

In short, Yahoo! still has some very popular properties, and this is one of the reasons Microsoft feels like the two companies are a match. They can place ads on Yahoo!’s popular sites. Yet the question remains: can Microsoft retain the profitability of these properties given a very ugly and difficult merger? Internet companies are driven by the talent of their people, and without the right leaders providing vision for product, design, or engineering, Internet products can get really stagnant really fast. There’s some stickiness to some of Yahoo!’s products, like Flickr and mail, but customers will switch if they think their platform is dead or dying.

If this gets ugly, both Microsoft and Yahoo! will have a hard time retaining talent. That’s good for competitors, but bad for this deal and the shareholders of both companies. Ultimately, the lesson here is that hostile takeovers of Internet companies are really, really hard because the valuable assets are mostly intellectual and talent related. Microsoft may prove this wrong, but somehow I doubt it.

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While visiting my parents for the holidays, I pulled down a random volume from their copy of the Encylpædia Britannica. My parents bought the complete set in 1992, and for the next several years The Britannica filled our minds with knowledge of far off places and historical people.

Today, the concept of a printed and bound encyclopedia seems so quaint with the likes of Google and Wikipedia filling our desire for learning. I can consult them everywhere from my computer at home to my iPhone while on the go. However, despite The Britannica’s size and lack of portability, it’s still generally relevant. It’s not like the life and times of King Henry VIII has changed all that much in the past 15 years. But what The Britannica gets wrong, it gets really wrong.

Science, medicine, and technology are areas where the printed Britannica fails completely — their carefully written articles are utterly worthless starting the moment the books are printed. To combat this decay, Britannica sends out an update book of sorts called The Science and Future Yearbook. Our copy arrived at the end of 1992, but even this update rapidly degenerated to garbage in a short period of time.

Consider their article on technology and telecommunications (pages 323-326 in the 1992 edition). The article begins by contemplating the future of fiber optics, and even predicts the difficulties of bringing fiber to the home. What the article calls the “fiber to the curb” problem we would call the “last mile” problem. However it all goes downhill from there when the article decides that fiber to the home really isn’t all that important anyway:

The question arose as to why fiber should be used for local service. After all, if a fiber — theoretically capable of transmitting hundreds of thousands of conversations — was to be used for only a singe conversation, or even two or three conversations, it might not be worth the effort to install it.

The article spends more time worrying about who will pay the utility bills for powering the equipment to convert fiber to copper on a neighborhood level, and then concludes that the only value of running fiber to homes is for television access. Even this, it concludes, may not offer an improvement over traditional coax cable. At no point does the word “Internet” appear.

Of course, the odd thing is that a true futurist would have seen some aspect of the rise of the Internet in 1992. The World Wide Web had been invented three years earlier in 1989 while dial-up services like Prodigy had been around since the mid 1980s. To completely miss the benefit of fiber optics was inexcusable for 1992, and without a doubt this failure demonstrates the fundamental problem with any kind of encyclopedia: Someone, somewhere, knows better than you.

This single truth shows the true value of Wikipedia, despite how many (including Britannica’s editors) claim otherwise. Self proclaimed experts just aren’t good enough, and there are very few fields, especially in science and technology, where a single expert can capture the broadest understanding of both current and future research. Quite honestly, The Britannica screwed up in 1992. Had Wikipedia existed, this article would have been shaped differently.

Let me conclude with another excerpt from later in the article where The Britannica sums up the predictions about cell phone networks:

The next generation of mobile systems was named the personal-communications network. In the PCN, the cells would likely be smaller, the sets smaller and less expensive, and the requirements for handoffs greater because of that diminished cell size. The exact role such a network would play had not yet to be determined. Skeptics doubted that it would have any significant effect on the world of telecommunications. Proponents suggested that sometime after the turn of the century a person would be assigned a telephone number at birth and that the number would remain with the assignee for life — wherever he or she might live.

It’s not a bad prediction in some ways, but like before it completely misses the rise of the mobile Internet or mobile digital media. The rest of the article is no better.

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