Yesterday one of my friends emailed out something from an article about a study done about literacy rates. Of course the article bemoaned falling literacy rates of 18 to 24 year olds. The article in question is here: American Youth TV Habits Lower Job Prospects, Community Service.
For me simply put – it doesn’t matter. It does not change what I’m going to do. It does not change the fact that I find myself needing to write a pile of statements of work and perform the work there in. It does not change that I make my kids spend time reading, playing games on their Wii, riding bikes and participating in sports. It provides nothing useful and being from old media while delivering their usual gloom and doom message caters to my bias that if it were on paper its only utility would be to help me build a fire in my fire pit.
At the end of the day this isn’t hard science. Humans remain humans. Kids will either adapt to the environment, find successful ways to change the environment, or be cast aside as others move in and change the environment and are more successful at it. God forbid that we be invaded by France and lose because the irony would just eat at me.
The only part of the discussion I have any interest in is the capabilities of the human mind and the question of whether we retain the ability to operate in construct space. My answer remains an emphatic yes we do. In fact I’m even willing to go a step further and say it has improved in the past generations aided by the easy access to technology our environment is giving us. The reason I believe that is the shear verity of social memes in operation simultaneously. People are more imaginative and creative than ever before. Thank god we have the technology so those creations can be more easily shared across the globe.
So instead of reading gloom and doom crap produced by people you don’t know and possibly should not be given your trust – go out and create something , do something. If your concern is that kids are not living up to your expectations – what are you doing about it?