While there always has been some generational grousing, there is enough
poll data to suggest that the number of people reading about current
events has dropped. This obviously has greater implications than
whether one generation follows another'sl tastes in music,
entertainment, etc. I'm not talking about where people get their news
(traditional print or broadcast journalism, cable, Internet, etc.).
I'm talking about whether they follow the news at all. In fact, just
recently David Mindich published a book, _Tuned Out: Why Americans
Under 40 Don't Follow the News_.
See
http://shrinkster.com/cpw .
An article about public diplomacy in the National Journal in 2005 noted
the results of a poll in 1994
"Americans also fare poorly compared with Europeans both in following
the news and in understanding it, according to a 1994 survey by Pew's
predecessor, the Times Mirror Center for the People and the Press. No
identical survey has been done since the 1994 study, but in that study,
Americans were less likely than the Germans or the British to have read
a newspaper the day before the survey was taken and were less likely
than the Germans, the Italians, or the British to have listened to
television news.
And when asked five current-events questions based on items then in the
news, Americans scored next to last among the eight nationalities
polled, ahead only of the Spanish. More disturbingly, young Americans
trailed British, Spanish, Italian, and German members of their
generation in reading a newspaper and were the group least likely to
understand international news. That inattentive and uninformed
generation of Americans is now 10 years older, and it would appear,
based on the more recent Pew survey, that they are even less engaged
with the world today than they were a decade ago."
See also
http://www.education-world.com/a_issues/chat/chat078.shtml
for an discussion of the observation that many young Americans are
"aliterate" -- that is, they know how to read but choose not to!
The Washington Post's Linton Weeks reported on this phenomenon on May
14, 2001 in an article, "The No-Book Report: Skim It and Weep: More
and More Americans Who Can Read Are Choosing Not To. Can We Afford to
Write Them Off?"
Weeks noted, "A 1999 Gallup Poll found that only 7 percent of Americans
were voracious readers, reading more than a book a week, while some 59
percent said they had read fewer than 10 books in the previous year.
Though book clubs seem popular now, only 6 percent of those who read
belong to one. The number of people who don't read at all, the poll
concluded, has been rising for the past 20 years."
Weeks reported that "To Jim Trelease, author of "The Read-Aloud
Handbook," this trend away from the written word is more than
worrisome. It's wicked. It's tearing apart our culture. People who have
stopped reading, he says, "base their future decisions on what they
used to know.
"If you don't read much, you really don't know much," he says. "You're
dangerous."
Weeks specifically addresses the "loss of heritage."
To read the Weeks piece, go to
http://shrinkster.com/cpx
All of this suggests that there must be something going on beyond the
usual us vs. them that you find with various generations. But, I'm not
a sociologist, I just know what I know from reading the Washington
Post, Washington Times, the New York Times, Newsweek, U.S. News & World
Report, and Time on a routine basis -- that is reading them every
day/week, to say nothing of various supplemental journals, LOL.
Maarja
-----Original Message-----
From: Scott, Paul (FPM) <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 14:07:56 -0600
Subject: Re: Early Friday Funny
Colleagues,
Perhaps it is time we reflected upon human foibles-especially our own.
Whenever colleagues talk about how woefully ignorant the younger
generation is, I recall a conversation I overheard between two history
professors in 1965 or 1966. They discussed how woefully unprepared
were the undergraduates "nowadays" and how my generation did not know
the basic elements of American History, let alone world history. We
were even surprisingly ignorant of recent events of only 10-20 years
ago. This conversation was only remarkable only because I've heard it
many times since then, and not only from historians and archivists. It
all breaks down to the same phenomenon-the younger generation is
pitiful.
Give the kids a break-they haven't lived through half the stuff the
rest of us have, nor have they had the opportunity to read even 5% as
much as the average old timer. Besides, it seems that no one has ever
learned all that much about American History in High School. And what
do we know of their culture? How many of us over 50 watch their shows,
listen to their music, or play their games? I don't. The average
teenager today probably knows more about rock-and-roll than I know
about hip hop.
The bottom line is that the younger generation is going to the
dogs-always has been-always will. But, in the end, they will bury us.
Paul R. Scott, CA, CRM
(Curmudgeon 3rd Class)
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A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org.
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