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Get off my Lawn....
If it wasn't for Librivox and gutenberg.org, Google Books and the Internet Classics Archive, I don't think I'd be very far along in consuming the Western canon. Since I'm not entirely sure where I got the idea that reading the Western canon was a worthwhile thing in the first place, there's also a decent chance the internet is responsible for that as well.
The internet is also a very good place to find bibliographies for obscure subjects (pre-Prohibition cocktail culture, Japanese tea service rituals, etc.) and communication access with the handful of dorks in the world with any interest or knowledge in the subject, some of which run in circles that you wouldn't have easy access to otherwise, like famous authors.
The internet does make it easier to be lowbrow. There was a time when the only people who would think your dead baby jokes weren't tasteless and tacky were a couple of your pals, now you can share them with millions of like-minded individuals.
Now that the Gundam rant is over, we really aren't the dumbest generation. We are just taking advantage of the previous generation so that we don't do anything and weaken. It's a perpetual cycle until we are like everyone in Wall-E
I believe that a lot of the missunderstanding is based on who is judging who and by what standards. With adults judging children based on the same standards they were taught to look for, any deviation would naturally count against the children who are judged. Say the parents thought intelligent children where very versed in subject A. If the child, instead, chooses to focus on subject B, thus spending less time studying subject A then, by the parents standards, the child is less intelligent. This is a highly simplified model, but I trust you get the picture. This becomes obscured by the sheer number of fields that can be studied. Overall, means of evaluating intelligence is always outdated because the people developing the evaluation techniques and the people being evaluated are two different generations.
Also, I would argue that you cannot compare the absolute intelligences of age groups that focused on such different fields of interest. How many people honestly believe that standardized testing is an accurate measure of intelligence or even knowledge, for that matter?
Video games prove generations are getting smarter. Pong was novel but very difficult to the first generation of gamers. Today, 5-year-olds pick up the controls and complete multiple objectives in complete game worlds to complex in-depth storylines. Imagine your grandfather picking up any of the Metal Gear Solid titles at your age. Think what a confused fish-out-of-water he would be, lost against what he would see as the overwhelming sensory demands of the game!
I don't want to live in a world where each successive generation does not surpass me. The whole point is to get better, to become smarter, to master your environment with greater tenacity and to solve bigger problems.
I did my homework during my entire pre-college career. Still doesn't make Ethan Frome suck any less.
Most of us mortals need to study and do homework because we weren't blessed with such brilliance.
I would just like to point out, again, that while my grades were good enough in school to get me where I am today, they were not perfect. If I had actually worked hard, I probably could have gotten all As, got more scholarships, gone to the ivy leagues, etc. If that's what you want to do, then homework is where you should be. I wanted to be where I am today, and I achieved that with as little pain as possible. Why do unpleasant work if it isn't necessary to achieve your goal?
Do you think the author's complaint against video games might have to do with the infancy of the medium? With a lot of video games, you invest a bunch of time and effort, but the logic involved is video game logic and the choices are video game choices, so in the end you don't really get anything from a lot of them besides cheap thrills. Sort of like how there was a time when the bulk of sci-fi and comics were trashy pulp-style adventure stuff that wasn't really designed to make you think. That's not to say that all video games are like this, but if someone were to give a cursory examination of what the kids these days spent their time playing, it probably wouldn't be stuff like Natural Selection or complex strategy games. More Halo, Smash Brothers, Guitar Hero, Mario Kart, Grand Theft Auto, Pokemon, that sort of thing.
Learning isn't work unless you're either bad at it, or you don't actually want to be learning the information at hand. There was never once value in any of the homework I was ever assigned in elementary, middle, or high school, and I would have learned nothing further by actually doing it. Papers and projects, I did, but never homework. All As, 41 AP credits coming into school, plus night classes at a local college because my school didn't offer advanced chemistry, tell me that I made the right choice.
The reality is that we're not all supergeniuses with eidetic memories. Most people have to work to gain knowledge and skills and retain them; and even if they enjoy the work, it's still work. That work is practice. You admit that you practiced, even though apparently you were so smart you were able to begin substituting your judgment for your teacher's regarding what was useful practice at a very early age. Most of us do not have that superior judgment and wisdom.
Furthermore, there are many among us that grew up in areas where calculus parties were impossible because there were no other people around. It's pretty hard to have a calculus party with a horse. I'm glad I did my homework.
The Soviets were actually pretty close, all things considered. While there were, to be sure, serious problems with their educational system, it was in many ways a huge step in the right direction. Coupling their good ideas with the useful aspects of both the existing US and Japanese school systems, I think we could have a winner.
I actually have a fairly specific idea, but I'll have to elaborate later.