[BartSimpson]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/artic ... ncompoops/

Pretty interesting article on the premise of a new book.

Quote:

NEW YORK—Second-graders who can't tie shoes or zip jackets. Four-year-olds in Pull-Ups diapers. Five-year-olds in strollers. Teens and preteens befuddled by can openers and ice-cube trays. College kids who've never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope.

Are we raising a generation of nincompoops? And do we have only ourselves to blame? Or are some of these things simply the result of kids growing up with push-button technology in an era when mechanical devices are gradually being replaced by electronics?

Susan Maushart, a mother of three, says her teenage daughter "literally does not know how to use a can opener. Most cans come with pull-tops these days. I see her reaching for a can that requires a can opener, and her shoulders slump and she goes for something else."

Teenagers are so accustomed to either throwing their clothes on the floor or hanging them on hooks that Maushart says her "kids actually struggle with the mechanics of a clothes hanger."

Many kids never learn to do ordinary household tasks. They have no chores. Take-out and drive-through meals have replaced home cooking. And busy families who can afford it often outsource house-cleaning and lawn care.

"It's so all laid out for them," said Maushart, author of the forthcoming book "The Winter of Our Disconnect," about her efforts to wean her family from its dependence on technology. "Having so much comfort and ease is what has led to this situation -- the Velcro sneakers, the Pull-Ups generation. You can pee in your pants and we'll take care of it for you!"

The issue hit home for me when a visiting 12-year-old took an ice-cube tray out of my freezer, then stared at it helplessly. Raised in a world where refrigerators have push-button ice-makers, he'd never had to get cubes out of a tray -- in the same way that kids growing up with pull-tab cans don't understand can openers.

But his passivity was what bothered me most. Come on, kid! If your life depended on it, couldn't you wrestle that ice-cube tray to the ground? It's not that complicated!

Mark Bauerlein, author of the best-selling book "The Dumbest Generation," which contends that cyberculture is turning young people into know-nothings, says "the absence of technology" confuses kids faced with simple mechanical tasks.

But Bauerlein says there's a second factor: "a loss of independence and a loss of initiative." He says that growing up with cell phones and Google means kids don't have to figure things out or solve problems any more. They can look up what they need online or call mom or dad for step-by-step instructions. And today's helicopter parents are more than happy to oblige, whether their kids are 12 or 22.

[stratos]

I would now like to challange all 40-70 year olds to get into covered wagons and go from kentucky to california. You cant use the roads and highways nor bridges. I would then ask you to build a house you can have about 10 people helping you but you must participate.

Ask 100 70 yr olds what these stand for and or mean LOL, Rotfl, Pmsl, ttys.

All generations have unique and odd particulars about them that previous generations look upon as a loss. The art of writing a letter is gone for the most part and I would suggest in another 20yrs you writing a letter to someone and putting it in the mail will seem like something out of the stoneage. A lack of skill in some area's can be directly atributed to the parents lack of teaching their childern, expecting others to do so. In other cases it can be atributed to progress if such skills are no longer needed why learn them, progress has religated skills to the junk pile of bygone years. Some times us adults need to look and see just what is going on and not condem our childern out of hand just because they dont know how to do something.

[Brenda]

I don't think many of us know how to use a washboard to wash clothes and dry clothes on a line.
Or even walk to do groceries or whatever instead of taking some kind of transport on wheels.

Like our grandparents did.

Every generation has its new things, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that I don't know how to do what my grandparents did on a daily basis.

[andyt]

Quote:

Second-graders who can't tie shoes or zip jackets. Four-year-olds in Pull-Ups diapers. Five-year-olds in strollers. Teens and preteens befuddled by can openers and ice-cube trays. College kids who've never done laundry, taken a bus alone or addressed an envelope.

Except for the envelope part, these aren't skills that are lost to technology or new ways of doing things, but parents infantalizing their kids. Maybe it makes sense - the time we take to grow up has increased steadily as society becomes more complex - at one time teenagers were seen as adults, at one time pre-teens had to get our there and work like everybody else. Still, it most of it just seems to be parents doing things for kids that the kids should be doing themselves. 5 yr olds in strollers - that's just sick. And you wonder about the obesity epidemic.

[FieryVulpine]

Just a minor note: this book is not new. I read it about two years ago, and frankly, I was not impressed.

[hurley_108]

stratos wrote:

I would now like to challange all 40-70 year olds to get into covered wagons and go from kentucky to california. You cant use the roads and highways nor bridges. I would then ask you to build a house you can have about 10 people helping you but you must participate.

Ask 100 70 yr olds what these stand for and or mean ,LOL, Rotfl, Pmsl, ttys.

All generations have unique and odd particulars about them that previous generations look upon as a loss. The art of writing a letter is gone for the most part and I would suggest in another 20yrs you writing a letter to someone and putting it in the mail will seem like something out of the stoneage. A lack of skill in some area's can be directly atributed to the parents lack of teaching their childern, expecting others to do so. In other cases it can be atributed to progress if such skills are no longer needed why learn them, progress has religated skills to the junk pile of bygone years. Some times us adults need to look and see just what is going on and not condem our childern out of hand just because they dont know how to do something.

Good perspective. I think the original article had a good point about loss of self-sufficiency, but yea, the rest was just the passage of old technology into obscurity.

For instance, what kind of can opener did the kids have trouble with? The kind where you clamp down on the rim and crank, or the kind where you have to see-saw around the rim making a jagged mess of the whole thing? I even remember the kind of can opener that made triangular pour-holes in the lid (in our house it was usually tomato juice in those kinds). They just don't sell tomato juice that way anymore, so I don't even own that kind of can-opener, though I remember how to use it.

The way I see it, there are two skill sets that are useful: The skills to effectively participate in the present, with modern technologies and products; and the skills to be able to make it if all those technologies disappear. I freely admit I'm personally woefully lacking in the latter. But if we experience a massive technological collapse, we're not going to magically revert to 1950 with all the technologies and niceties of that decade (milk doors, oil furnaces, analogue black-and-white TV coming in on rabbit ears) - we'll revert to a pre-industrialized state, and a good number of us will simply be fucked.

[herbie]

Just fired a 22 yr old high school grad who - honest to God - couldn't look things up in a phone book, read a work order or mail letters. Played online games all day but was functionally illiterate.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

It's been going on for YEARS. I used to work at a pre-fab shop and the boss hired a high school "graduate" that had ZERO idea how to use a tape measure or ruler. And that was 20 years ago!

[Choban]

This subject has been beat to death, everyone has an opinion, problem is we can't force people to impart these "skills" (I use the word lightly as going to the bathroom isn't a skill) on their kids.
Try educating people and stop coddeling every dumbass kid that doesn't meet the grade and we should be alright

[desertdude]

I call them "mummy daddy kids" because they can't do anything on their own and every two seconds you will hear them call out. My personal view, products of over protective parents and yes parents also need to sometimes need to face the fact that their kid is a dumbass.

And also parents who let their kids boss them around.

[SprCForr]

Can openers are a funny topic at our house. When me and Mrs SprCForr got married and set up house we forgot about a can opener. I pulled out my issued pocket knife and showed her how to use it. It's been in use ever since. Picture is of the US version:



My kids like to puzzle their friends when they stay for a meal by getting them to try it. No can is safe with that thing around.

Back in the day we noticed a shift in the basic hand tool instruction given to recruits. It went from mostly hand tool safety to have to include hand tool use. A sizable portion of the groups didn't have any exposure to basic hand tools prior to joining up.

[EyeBrock]

I think some people just have an easier life than others.

When I enlisted, most of the guys I joined with came from similar backgrounds. Urban-poor, crappy family life etc. We were all hardened by our upbringing and most were very resourceful, not because we were better than others, but because we had to be to get by.

I think more people have an easier life than those in the past and most kids don't need the ability to do some things we see as basic.

I instruct now and then and some of the concepts I teach are very alien to the class, but they soon get the hang of it.

I don't think this generation are 'dumber', they just have it easy. Who wants their kids to have a hard life?

[Mustang1]

Not "dumbest" but maybe most "willfully ignorant" or "entitled" or "lazy". Time will tell.

[Robair]

If there is truth to any of this, my kid is going to run the whole damn show.

[Mr_Canada]

Dumb by their lack of interest.

So many flashing bright lights since the day we were born.

Their lives begin to revolve around small blinking things that have
been provided to them. They seek nothing further. They question little.

They are bored to a state of apathy with trivial excitements...

At some point in our lives, none of us understand how an
ice cube tray works. But a few seconds of thinking solve that.