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Issue #223 February 2009
Are We Dumb Enough Yet?
by Steve Ciarcia
OK, this is a rant, but I have to clarify that it isn’t aimed at you. It’s aimed at everybody else. ;-)
Seriously, if you are reading Circuit Cellar, then you have already passed the selection criteria: you’re smart, you don’t accept spoon-fed techno-crap, and you are not a slouch. Let’s face it, Circuit Cellar is only casual reading for a very educated and select minority, and that’s just fine with me.
Unfortunately, I wonder about the rest of society. Am I in the minority, or are any of you getting a lot more stupid questions these days too? You would think after 15 to 20 years of owning and using computers on a daily basis that people would understand them better. Lots of them, including some of my relatives and friends, still ask naive questions. Examples include: Does anybody besides Microsoft make a word processor? Why do I need antivirus software? How many pictures can you fit on an SD card? Certainly, such simple questions can be effortlessly answered with a two-minute web search.
OK, I’m an old guy these days, but the younger the person (in decades) that I speak to, the less basic knowledge they seem to have. They know every popular band and song artist, but don’t ask them what continent Venezuela is on or how many meters are in a kilometer. It’s like facts aren’t important because knowledge is so readily accessible via the web that they don’t feel the need to retain it "offline." Unfortunately, I think this “spoon feeding” started a long time ago and is endemic to our dumbed-down western culture. Rather than research subjects that expand individual knowledge, people too often simply view individual answers as data bits with short-term application and no need for retention. Asking me how to do something or how something works is like going to Wikipedia, only with less work on their part. I even have friends who’ll e-mail me asking how to connect a new piece of electronic gear when it’s obvious that they had to move the unread installation manual out of the way to type the e-mail.
A lot has been said about the demise of print media, particularly newspapers, because people are supposedly getting their information on the Internet. But I wonder if much of the demise is self-inflicted. I believe that popular media has become so dumbed down and sound-bite-centric that it has completely dropped the ball on in-depth coverage. The marketing departments have brainwashed the editorial people to focus on an early twenties-type readership who all have attention deficit disorder but, fortunately, a fist full of credit cards. In the meantime, they lose white-collar college graduates who are tired of the complete lack of unbiased editorial and technical frankness—euphemisms like “specialized counting system” instead of just saying “hexadecimal.” Heaven forbid a reader might have to go figure out what a word meant and learn something.
Broadening the language and taking out the technical words is nothing new. I don’t expect that newspapers will emulate EE Times or Circuit Cellar in their descriptions, but it’s interesting that even when they publish articles in their technology sections about the perceived dumbing down of technology awareness, they still write everything as though we’re morons. No wonder many of us look for news resources elsewhere.
Sometimes I feel like we are an isolated minority, but perhaps technical people have always had this burden. We’re valued greatly when it comes to the intelligence that spawns technical revolution, but we’re disparaged when we criticize the cultural degradation that comes with mass use of it. Language seems like an insignificant issue, but if correct computer terminology isn’t part of the public language, then people will remain dummies. If average readers keep seeing “specialized counting system” they learn nothing. If they see acronyms such as DRAM and USB, or a term such as multithreaded programming when they read about computers, maybe they’ll make some effort to figure out what it all means. Certainly, there are many newspaper editors who will vehemently disagree with me, but ask how many of them want their IBM Selectrics back before factoring in their criticism. I have my biases too, but some of these guys must surely hate computers.
I’d like to say that things are getting better, but continually lowering the “cognitive” bar to attract a wider readership only makes it worse. I can’t speak for all of western society, but it’s starting to look like the American public’s brain is expected to run in neutral most of the time. The only bright light on the horizon has been the computers themselves. Like the cars that replaced horses and the bulldozers that replaced shovels, it looks like we continually strive to develop machines to replace manual tasks. This time, however, we are expecting them to expand the heavy lifting to include doing our thinking too.
Along with me, I predict that a large group of independent thinkers in this audience will view this future with disdain. Unfortunately, the majority of the public will be happy as a clam. Of course, it also means they have the IQs to match.
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