Something to chew on...

Well, I think that part of it is that there is now so much more to know. There was a time when it would have been possible to "know everything" (not really, but you get my point) ...have read all the books, seen all the plays. To be well-rounded and knowledgeable in a wide variety of areas takes a lot of effort.

I think that a tendency to expect to be entertained, to have the answers spelled out, to not have to work for meaning, has been cultivated as our lives have become more cluttered. Just look at the For Dummies books....marketed as a way to become an expert at something without developing a working knowledge of the subject...

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Very interesting. Of course I doubt that many of the younger generation will agree with ya Bulldog. I think there's two side to this.

One side- In the past 20 -30 years, there has been so much offered to young people in the way of opportunities to better themselves in literally every aspect of life. I pray that they realize this and take their life seriously. They need to remember one thing " Life is a choice and the decisions are yours".

Other side- We live in a life filled with self-gratification and instant everything. Technology has made life so easy, yet so complex that some young people are totally cluless as to who or what they are. Words like, STRESS,MULTI-TASKING, FEAR, INDEPENDANCE, PEER PRESSURE, have taken on a new and overwhelming meaning for our young people. It's scary as hell out there!

Part of me envies the opportunities at hand for our 18-25 yr. olds and part of me is grateful that I don't have to face their challanges. "Our" challanges were tough enough to deal in the 80's, 70's, 60's. Forget about the 50's ! Most people were grounded in stable, one income families that shared everything together.

I live in both worlds- old enough to remember how it was and young enough to have sons that face today's world as young adults. No wonder I'm NUTS!

Nice topic though!

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Updated On: 3/4/04 at 10:35 PM

Or maybe smarter--so there's hope!

Updated On: 3/5/04 at 07:14 AM

I think thenadvances in technology that you mentioned are a large part of the shorter attention spans and seemingly dumber attitudes. We have the ability to do so much more in less time, we can get basic information on just about anything with a quick internet search and our lives are so much more hectic then they may have been genertions ago.

I think many people have lost the art of reading and doing painstaking research which often leads to gaining knowledge that one may not have expected to gain. A good example is that in my small town just outside Boston, budget cuts have forced the upcoming closing of our town library, a resource taht i frequently utilize. I am shocked to find how little most people under a certain age seem to care or even realize that there was a library in town. The attitude, for many, seems to be "we have the internet and it's much quicker. Who needs books? Who needs to read?

The technology that we have access to right in our homes is wonderful and I would never trade it for anything. However, I think it's helped lead to dumbing down. We are too busy so we want soundbites, quick details and information scaled down to a few sentences. Thsi short attention spn carries over into the arts...movies that don't make us think, plays that are simplistic and purely for entertainment and books that are put on the ineternet in a Cliff notes form.

I think also, that we don't put enough value on the profession of teaching. We don't pay people enough to make teaching attractive and we don't fund our schools properly.

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Updated On: 3/5/04 at 08:12 AM

common sense and courtesy have gone out the window

Hey I used to work in a library! So there! I did a little bit of everything. Our branch was so small that whenever anyone needed anything I was usually the one to go help them find it. I guess you could have called me the "Reference Librarian" for our branch but at the student assistant payscale. It was a good job, I understand libraries so much better than the majority of people my age. (Except the library up here at school, they use some crazy form of dewey decimal I've never seen before.) And now back to your regular scheduled programming. I had friends who made fun of me for working at the library, but I got the last laugh when they all came in and needed to get library cards! Mwahahaha! By the way the card catalogs are now all online, you don't have the little drawers anymore. You can even reserve and renew books online.

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Updated On: 3/5/04 at 12:57 PM

I'm all for technology as well, but what I hate are the books on tape. I have never listened to one myself, but in my opinion they are horrible. First of all, authors work very hard to write their books; and for what? For some celebritry to read it for everyone rather than allowing them to read and experience and interpret on their own? It also takes away from practicing your reading skills. Pretty soon Hooked on Phonics will be out of business because children won't need to learn how to read! I think it's very sad.

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Phonics isn't even taught it most schools anymore...I was lucky and got it when I was younger, and there are a few teachers who still sneakily teach it and don't tell the administrators. Then the administrators wonder why their the teachers students do so much better than the other students in the grade level.

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So right DofB5. I've always thought that it was admirable if someone stayed at home, whether it be a man or a woman, with the kids. I work with people where both of them are out persuing their careers and leaving the kids with the nanny. Of course there are households where both adults need to work in oder to pay the bills but, a lot of these people are just trying to make money for a bigger house, even though the one they have is huge, or the his and hers Range Rovers, etc.

One family I know, when they had their first child the wife gave up her well paying job to stay at home. They had to resign themselves to just one car and a smaller house than they may have liked. Now, both their children are quite intelligent and well adjusted. They are both mature beyond their ages. I can't help but attribute that to the fact that one parent stayed home and helped them with school work every day, got involved with the kids schools and knew where the kids were and what they were doing all the time.

Once gay men can marry, I think I'll stay at home and be the home maker

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