The Dumbing Down of America

[XXXNoahXXX]

OP, please retitle this thread "Innovations".

The people that brought up cars, cooking, and particularly AIM are definite good examples of what I think the OP was going for.

Another thing that has definitely dumbed down America is things like cliff notes and sparknotes. Classic books going unread because its easier to just get the fast-food version.

[TomCollins]

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What products out there make people use less brain power?

Examples:

Calculator instead of Pen and Paper
GPS Navigation instead of a Map
Spell Checker instead of a Dictionary

What are some others?

Big Steve [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

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All of these things make my life a TON easier. I am less likely to make a mistake and they save me a ton of time. For the real answer, I would say the promotion of "self esteem awareness" and lack of exposure to failure kids get in schools.

[guids]

Usually the people who say that technology is dumbing down Americans say so because they do not know how to get full use out of the technology. Whats dumb imo, is going to the library, looking up the book I want, getting the book off the shelf, etc, rather than just googling and saving about an hour's worth of time.


rushmore is spot on in regards to what is making people dumb.

[joes28]

OOT.

[Mr. Mexican]

nothing wrong with this. dumb people are typically happier and more caring about others.

[Jack of Arcades]

It's not just that we're not exposing kids to failure, we're actively training them to think that working hard is bad and it means you're stupid.

[guids]

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Under the definition of OP Wikipedia is probably one of the worst things to happen in terms of requiring less brain power, but would you really argue that Wikipedia has dumbed down America? I have at least cursory knowledge on hundreds of topics that I might have never even heard of before Wikipedia. Anyone who doesn't go research things in scientific journals today wouldn't have 50 years ago, and some people who do now do it because they were exposed to topics through Google et al. Increasing the speed at which information is disseminated is never a bad thing.

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Agreed, but I think OP probably meant more like Blarg said - the decline of general ability to service ones own car (due to 50,000 cheapo chain mechanics) etc.

I will say frozen food, fast food and take-out places have seriously deteriorated the ability of the average person to cook. The more easy, lazy food options there are the less people are inclined to cook. I'd be willing to bet that at least 35% of the adult population in the US couldn't turn a grocery store steak, some grocery store potatoes and fresh green beans into food.

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Ya man, this is a [censored] huge one here. How many girls do you know in the 18 to 25 age range that know how to cook? I mean WTF, what am I going to do when I want to settle down? I was hanging out with this broad over the weekend and she asked if it was ok to put tin foil IN THE OVEN.

[punkass]

I know I feel dumber after watching any cable news networks for more than a couple minutes.

[TomCollins]

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It's not just that we're not exposing kids to failure, we're actively training them to think that working hard is bad and it means you're stupid.

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Working hard when not neccesary IS stupid. Teaching kids to work smart is highly underrated. You see people work their butts off on the dumbest things. I just take the most important things, work my ass off on that, and the rest I do a pretty good job on, and it comes out a lot better than someone who spent a lot more time on the same thing.

[Triumph36]

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Can we clarify what we're comparing the current "stupid America" to?

Are we comparing it to the early 1800's, when most girls didn't attend school and most boys stopped extremely early so they could help on the farm?

Are we comparing it to the industrial revolution, when kids were working in dangerous factories instead of being in school?

Are we comparing it to the 1970's, when the high school dropout rate was almost 4% higher than it is today?

The only thing that you can say America is "dumber than" is some countries today. But I'm pretty sure South Korea uses GPS Systems and Germany has Google and India* has celebrities (Bollywood).


*Not sure if you can even say that India is smarter as a whole because of the large rural population but I would imagine that's the perception in America

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how about this, then - while the average intelligence is theoretically rising (and it should be), the two extremes of the intelligence spectrum are getting dumber?

i definitely would know a hell of a lot more had the internet been invented, and i'm 100% serious. I might not know how many games David Vyborny played in his career, but I'd have a much greater knowledge of history and literature than I do now.