The Impact Of The Digital Age On Young Americans

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Solomon Enti M. Osborne Eng. 111-FJT59 19 Nov. 2011. The Impact of the Digital Age on Young Americans and the Future Mark Bauerlein’s book, The Dumbest Generation, seeks to portray the twenty-first century’s digital technology and its tools--cable television, cell phones, Internet, Skype, and iPhones—that are easily accessible to both the adult and adolescent societies. The question, however, is how are young people under the age of thirty benefitting from the digital age? Thus the main idea expressed in the book is the significant damage that the digital age has done to the intellectual growth of the adolescent group of the society, and the seemingly wide gap that the tools have created between adults and adolescents (Baulein lecture). The existence of numerous websites (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Skype, and other dating sites) on the Internet, and the use of cell phones have made it possible for the youth to build a social wall around them, which completely isolates them from the adult society, making adult supervision over teenagers impossible. Most people under the age of thirty have no growing knowledge because they only do what their peers do, and are not ready to learn new and challenging ideas and skills outside their circles (Baurlein lecture). They would rather read comic books and magazines than read newspapers or watch the news (12). Bauerlein expresses his concern about this situation, as he says, “It isn’t enough to say that these young people are uninterested in world realities. They are actively cut off from them. Or…are encased in more immediate realities that shut out conditions beyond—friends, work, clothes, cars, pop music, sitcoms, Facebook” (13). The tools of the digital age help most teenage Americans to form impenetrable groups, and keep up with

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