The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future(Or, Don ‘t Trust Anyone Under 30)

THIS SHOCKING, SURPRISING ENTERTAINING ROMP INTO THE INTELLECTUAL NETHER REGIONS OF TODAY’S UNDER-THIRTY SET REVEALS THE DISTURBING AND, ULTIMATELY, INCONTROVERTIBLE TRUTH- CYBERCULTURE IS TURNING US INTO A SOCIETY OF KNOW-NOTHINGS.

‘If you’re the parent of someone under 20 and read only one non-fiction book this fall, make it this one. Bauerlein’s simple but jarring thesis is that technology and the digital culture it has created are not broadening the horizon of the younger generation; they are narrowing it to a self-absorbed social universe that blocks out virtually everything else.’ -Don Campbell, USA Today

‘Throughout The Dumbest Generation, there are … keen insights into how the new digital world really is changing the way young people engage with information and the obstacles they face in integrating any of it meaningfully. These are insights that educators, parents, and other adults ignore at their peril.’
-Lee Drutman, Los Angeles Times

‘Demonstrates how the Internet is making young people increasingly ignorant about almost everything except online video games and the naricissism of self-authored Internet content.’ - Andrew Keen, The Independent

‘Argues that cultural and technological forces, far from opening up an exciting new world of learning and thinking, have conspired to create a level of public ignorance so high as to threaten our democracy.

Adults are so busy imagining the ways that technology can improve classroom learning or improve the public debate that they’ve blinded themselves to the collective dumbing down that is actually taking place.’ - David Robinson, The Wall Street Journal

‘It wouldn’t be going too far to call this book the Why Johnny Can’t Read for the digital age.’
- Booklist