“They have no natural curiosity for the historical past and high art, and if no respected elder introduces them to Romanticism and the French Revolution, they’ll rarely find such things on their own. With the read-write-film-view-browse-message-buy-sell Web, adolescent users govern their own expose, and the didactic and artistic content of smarter sites flies by unseen and unheard”

Mark Bauerlein has written a provocative book on Web usage entitled The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Ages Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopordizes Our Future (New York: Penguin Books, 2008). T. David Gordon mentioned this book in his lectures at the Second Annual Reformation Worship Conference at Midway Presbyterian Church in Powder Springs, Georgia which I attended in October. I was enthralled by Gordon’s lectures, and I purchased Bauerlein’s book in order to continue studying the issue of the benefits and problems of the Web.

I would highly recommend that everyone who uses the internet or is involved in the life of young people read this book (which is probably is almost everyone). Even if you do not agree with all that Bauerlein says, I believe that he asks the right type of questions about our use of screen media.

Bauerlein responds in his book to all the things that you have heard about the internet. Many people believe that it is creating a more intelligent youth culture and causing them to develop skills and abilities which they have never had before. The problem is that research does not bear this out, Bauerlein contends. In fact, the opposite is the case. Academic ability has decreased since the widespread use of digital media has become common among adolescents.

While the internet opens the world to young people, most of them use it simply to talk with their friends and share the photos, videos, and music of youth culture. Bauerlein writes:

For many [adolescents], good standing with classmates is the only way to secure a safe identity, and so they spend hours on the channels of adolescent fare searching out the latest in clothes, slang, music, sports, celebrities, school gossip, and one another. Technology has made it fabulously easier. (133)

He goes not to say that peer relationships are the heart of adolescent internet usage:

“That is the genuine significance of the Web to a 17-year-old mind, not the universe of knowledge brought to their fingertips, but an instrument of nonstop peer contact” (134).

Their technological savvy may give them an appearance of being knowledgeable, but that image quickly dissolves under questioning:

The 18-year-old may have a Visa card, cell phone, MySpace page, part-time job, PlayStation 2, and an admission letter from State U., but ask this wired and on-the-go high senior a few intellectual questions and the façade of the in-the-known-ness crumbles. (32)

Extensive studies of how teenagers use the internet back up his assertions, as he demonstrates at length in his book.

Why is this? Why don’t teens make better use of the astounding opportunities at their fingertips? The reason is that we are not naturally inclined to seek out culture and stretch our minds. Bauerlein writes:

They have no natural curiosity for the historical past and high art, and if no respected elder introduces them to Romanticism and the French Revolution, they’ll rarely find such things on their own. With the read-write-film-view-browse-message-buy-sell Web, adolescent users govern their own expose, and the didactic and artistic content of smarter sites flies by unseen and unheard. (159)

He provides an illustration of this principle from his first year home from college in 1977. He describes how he had only four television options in the afternoon. He chose to watch PBS moves instead of soap operas, talk shows, or The Gong Show. During that break, he watched for the first time, La Strada, Metropolis, Wild Strawberries, The Battleship Potemkin, L’Avventura, The 400 Blows, and The Rules of the Game. These are movies that he probably would not have chosen to watch, if he had had other options. But he didn’t. So he watched these films and still remembers that Christmas vacation as an enriching time. We are in a situation in which such experiences rarely occur. Adolescents completely govern what media they will observe, and the choices are generally not educational.

The medium itself also does not seem to lend itself to careful reading and learning. Studies by the Nielsen Norman Group, a consulting firm whose “core aim” was to “make Web pages easier to use and read and trust,” bear this out (142). Bauerlein summarizes their research:

Fifteen years of tests, analyses, reports, and consultations have crystallized into an unexpected but persuasive model of Web users and Web page usability. . . . [T]hey demonstrate that screen reading differs greatly from book reading. In 1997, he issued and alert entitled “How Users Read on the Web.” The first sentence rain, “They don’t.” (emphasis Bauerlein’s, 143).

That is the default. Some may read carefully on the Web, if they have learned to be readers elsewhere, but the screen itself does not drive us toward greater literacy. These studies were done by a group that was simply seeking to design better web sites to make more money. They had no educational axe to grind.

In Chapter 5 “The Betrayal of the Mentors” he explains how youth culture is idolized as a source of great wisdom. Rarely are adolescents confronted with their need to explore the literature and heritage of the past. Rarely do we hear, “If you don’t read Homer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, or Austen, you will be an incomplete person and lead an incomplete life” (182). Add all these elements together, and we have a recipe for ignorance and non-development of intelligence.

That is what Bauerlein argues. I would encourage you to read his arguments and think about how you and your children use the internet. You also may want to think about how to integrate some of these points into youth education. The internet is here to stay, and it is best if we can use this powerful medium as self-consciously as possible. Bauerlein’s book is a good start in doing just that.

Wes White is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America. He is currently serving as the Pastor of New Covenant Spearfish Presbyterian Church, Spearfish, South Dakota. This article originally appeared on his web site and is used with permission. [Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]