That said, I don’t find that example very convincing. OK, toddlers recognize six to eight fewer words for every hour of video watched. That’s a valid concern… but does that mean they’re generally learning or mentally maturing at a slower rate? I know vocabulary is strongly correlated with intelligence… but who’s to say that those toddlers watching videos aren’t making other important connections and advances in their tiny minds, connections and advances that are not measurable… or that are measurable but so far have gone unstudied? Maybe the video watching makes them better observers, or gives them a better eye and ear for motion and sound. Jacoby is quick to point out the cons of digital media without a single acknowledgement of their potential benefits. I’m not saying toddlers should never read, and hopefully Jacoby is not saying that they should never pull their heads out of books, either. There is room for balance, but I don’t see Jacoby searching for it.

The argument that you and Jacoby seem to make (correct me if I’m wrong) is that because of the flood of bite-size information that digital media provide, people are missing out on the richness available in books and other long-form writing because of the incentive to consume information quickly and move on to the next topic. They lose the ability — or at least the inclination — to sit down and situate the material they read in the world around them and in their own lives. I can see your point. I’ve just started reading novels for pleasure after a long, long hiatus and I am amazed at what I’ve been missing.

But isn’t there also richness in variety, immediacy, and brevity? Isn’t there value in being able to read about twenty different subjects in twenty minutes? You asked how much we can retain from this mode of information consumption. I retain a lot. A lot of it is trivial, sure, and doesn’t hold a candle to the ideas contained in novels or other books. But I have learned loads from the blogs I read, and they have and are leading me to explore new ideas, new problems, and even new career possibilities. Instead of digesting and reflecting on it on the spot, as I might with a book, I filter out what I want to reflect on and then think about it when I am I ready to do so: on the way home from work, on the blog, while eating lunch, etc. The brevity of the information nugget offered allows me to process it in similarly nugget-sized chunks of time. On my own schedule, I can place it in my world and in my life. Again, there is room for balance between books and blogs, but I don’t see Jacoby acknowledging it. Instead, she implies that anything other than books and the classic way of learning and digesting information makes us stupid “dunces.”

I’ll be the first to admit that I do not find myself balancing the two very well. I read my news exclusively online. The only magazine I read in print these days is Wired. I’ve read maybe four or five books outside of class since graduating from high school, yet I subscribe to almost 100 blogs. I am definitely not the best case scenario. But I don’t think rejecting blogs, video, and podcasts is the best case either. Arrogantly rejecting the value of useful new media is as “stupid” as arrogantly embracing it in exclusivity. Ashish, I don’t accuse you or Jacoby of all-out rejecting these media, but I just don’t see it in her argument, and I think that makes her article less than useful.

I definitely agree with your points about college. There is actually a transcript of a chat between Jacoby and Washington Post readers about her article, and she brings that subject up: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/02/15/DI2008021502904.html . Here’s hoping that liberal arts education survives and finds it way back into all academic settings in the coming years. It will definitely take a concerted effort.

Bruce makes a good point about the ignorance of prior generations, but I largely agree with Jacoby about the detrimental effect of an emphasis on digital and video media. I think Jacoby would have been better served emphasizing reflection rather than concentration as the chief virtue of absorbing books, magazines, and other print media. When you buy or pick up a book, the experience forces you to step back and situate its content in relation to your life and sense of self. That book, unique among the tens of thousands at Borders or Barnes and Noble, will be your companion for the next few hours. The sheer quantity of digital or video media a person consumes in a given day, on the other hand, is so diffuse in its breadth and perspective that zeroing in on specifics is difficult. In a one hour period, you may read twenty different blog posts on twenty different subjects. How much can any of us really expect to retain?

To be clear, I am not saying there is anything inherent in digital or video media that makes us dilettantes. If we really wanted to, all of us could spend hours contemplating what we encounter online. But these media incentivize quick, rapid consumption; understandably, people want to sample the buffet line in full, and that may simply mean only grabbing a few bites of each dish.

Another trend Jacoby could have identified as worrisome is the tendency for people to specialize at the expense of well-roundedness. ISI gave college seniors a simple test of civic literacy, and the results are pretty dismal.

http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/

The test itself, as you will see, is far from perfect in what it tests for, but it’s hard to think of a good reason for no college to earn better than a D+.

College used to be about making yourself a better person, but it is now largely a way for society to certify that individuals are ready to be employed. So while people may be more well-trained for their careers than ever before, they have become only marginally better equipped to function as capable citizens because the traits needed to be a good citizen–a sense of history, critical thinking, an ability to discern good arguments from bad, and most importantly, a commitment to your community–will largely be a function of a person’s values, and values are one thing colleges have largely forfeited as a luxury as more and more students have gone on to higher education.

Is it possible that the feared rise of ignorance in America is actually a rise in awareness of that ignorance, rather than people actually knowing less about the world with each subsequent generation?