Lately there has been a lot of press about how Millennials are the dumbest generation. "Dummy 'drumbeat' goes on for U.S. students" and Susan Jacoby's "Dumbing of America."
What is the point? What are we going to do about it? It reminds me of the 50s when people were upset that their children were listening to that satanic Rock & Roll music!
Times are a changing. We cannot expect each generation to go unscathed by their different upbringings. Primarily, this generation has engulfed in e-stimulus!
Millennials have spent the majority of their life having access to computers, and more importantly the WEB. They are more accustomed to multitasking and accessing different information on the web.
Millennials have more diversity awareness. In many cases, Millennials are more tolerant of different viewpoints, genders, sexualities, races, etc. Isn't that GREAT? I think that's wonderful! This tolerance should be welcomed into the workforce.
From a librarian's perspective, we need to keep updating our services to keep Millennials in the loop! Services like Meebo will help students maintain anonymity while asking reference questions to a librarian. Allow students to contact a librarian in many different ways. Have an Ask a Librarian link on the library web page, AOL screen name, MSN screen name, simple email address, Myspace page, Facebook page, etc. I think the key is to have many outlets for a students to use.Retweet this
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Why are we focusing on the negatives?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I have to say I agree more than disagree with Susan Jacoby. I think she is after anti-intellectualism more than anything and that is definitely a fight worth fighting. It's frustrating to watch people multi-task between trash-media all day and never read an actual article. I don't think it's an attack on new media or millennials gathering information new ways, but where we our focusing our attention.
I am interlibrary loaning Jacoby's book- Age of American Unreason. I admit that I have not fully digested her opinion.
I hate to be cheesy, but "The children are our future." I think there is something intellectual about the way Millennials are able to surf over so much information and absorb so much content.. Do you have any advice on how to force millennials and future generations to be more intellectual? It seems elitist to me. Although, I do not think No Child Left Behind is working.
“Have an Ask a Librarian link on the library web page...”
This is a great idea, and one that I think will prompt new media users to engage with traditional research methods—both very important, by the way. It gives today’s “instant on” culture a way to seek help from a source that’s deeper and more focused, rather than one that is wider and tend to also be shallower.
Post a Comment