Though technology’s advancements may make a strong counterargument, it is not an invalid question as to whether or not the general population of today’s day and age is getting dumber. Truly, are we getting dumber?
In the age of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and so many other social networking sites, we get out primary news from those feeds or timelines. Is that information really pertinent? Is it relevant? Is it full of good information? On this Wednesday early afternoon, I can go to my Facebook or Instagram iPhone app and see what everyone is posting now. I will see appetizing food, woes of being up at noon on a summer day, Christian Bale visiting the Aurora shooting victims, and endless pointless information. Only one of the many posts I went through (Bale to visit victims) was relevant to newsworthy content. This information that we are feeding our brains with is beginning to make us think that it is important. I shouldn’t need to know, nor be interest in, what Billy is having for dinner or what time Susan got up during the day. If it was someone I cared enough about to know this information, I would find out from them in person.
The term dumber is relative; relative to those around you I suppose. The problem comes when a majority of the people are participating in this mindless relaying of pointless information. A number of Professors are relegating their students to use Twitter to get class information, mixing in their possible class information with what Chad Ochocinco is planning for his next touchdown celebration. The point is simple: the general population is consuming themselves with getting ‘likes’ ‘comments’ or ‘thumbs up’ to fill their inner satisfaction of feeling needed or liked and that causes a problem when people subject themselves to these social media outlets for their daily news, forcing society to consume themselves in these pointless distracting facts than paying attention to school, work, or other enlightening information.