The 'laziest generation'?

This is true.

 

I don't necessarily agree. I think they are, for lack of a more artful way to put it, helping to make people dumber. Nicholas Carr wrote a whole book about it, "The Shallows."

This debate about the Internet, however, has been going on for a while in various contexts. The classic one: Does the Internet create more child predators? Or just give existing child predators a different medium to ply their trade?

 

please give your son a pat on the back from me.

 

Dammit! When I was in high school we were the laziest generation! Damn kids stealing our lazy thunder!

 

Ask college professors how much they love social networking. Some schools are shutting off wireless access in their classrooms because kids won't pay attention to the lecture or discussion.

I can't fathom that social networking, email, and instant messaging haven't all had a profound effect on our collective attention spans.

 

When I start teaching in the fall at the local community college, I'll probably have to be a "dick" about texting and surfing the Web in class.

 

This has been brewing for a while. A long time ago, when instant messaging via the computer was just starting to heat up, my friend's brother was dating a girl who lived across the street from him. On a warm summer evening they were happily chatting away on the computer. My friend and I looked on in awe. Walk out the effing front door and talk to her in person!

 

One of the reasons I got off Facebook was that it made it confusing to know what kind of relationships I had with people. It was so disorienting. To the point that it subconsciously felt like I was invading some sort of boundary to reach out to people any way but the safe, controlled environment of Facebook Land.

I don't miss it a bit. Someone on here got nasty with me about getting off of Facebook, which shows you just how unusual it is nowadays to not social network.

 

It's fine to get through a work shift. It's what you make of it, good or bad.

But it is a little discomforting to me that it has basically redefined the meaning of friend.

 

I will actually defend the teenage kids living across the street and texting each other. Its an awkward time, and texting/IMing *is* easier. Awkward pauses are much easier to handle, etc.

I just don't like when a kid is in a group of people and completely distances themselves by burying themselves in their texting/facebooking in front of others. Just seems pretty rude. What, we're not good enough company for you?

 

I just went through and pruned my friend list on Facebook. Kind of stunned that I had at least five 'friends' that I had never met, and only accepted because we had a bunch of mutual friends.

 

"Vis scire qui inertes? Guttenberg hedum ut cum mobile sem tellus, id qui."

("You want to know who was lazy? That Guttenberg kid with his fucking moveable type, that's who.")

- Holzapfel The Monk