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Dr. Snubnose wrote:Fact is I do know the difference between a Taylor Swift and a Miley Cyrus song.... But they don't know the difference between Simon and Garfinkel and Barry Manilow....and... They don't care to know.... Knowing basic American Culture seems to be a rarity these days...I don't think you can blame technology for all this... But I think you can blame laziness for most of the issues...I think it important to know that NASA is not an Island in the Bahamas....just saying...Doc:)

noseoil wrote:The #1 reason to quit smoking. For every cigarette you smoke, God gives Keith Richards another half hour of life.....

Doc Dan wrote:"no right or wrong". That is a perfect example of Post-Modern and moral nihilistic thinking. :D

Dr. Snubnose, perhaps your user name has a cure implied in it? :eek: :D Of course I am just kidding.

I think that young people today being plugged in is just another name for dropped out or turned off. 90% or so of my university students cannot read and cannot comprehend what is read. They can copy and paste, cheating, but without even knowing the context of what they stole. Now, if I show them a video I have their attention, but then they cannot tell me anything meaningful about what they saw, but unlike a book, they can at least tell me what it was about, sort of. Reading, critical thinking, and other such things activate a different part of the brain than does passively watching a video or TV. If it is not on their iPad or smart phone they are not interested.

tvenuto wrote:

Doc Dan wrote:"no right or wrong". That is a perfect example of Post-Modern and moral nihilistic thinking. :D

Dr. Snubnose, perhaps your user name has a cure implied in it? :eek: :D Of course I am just kidding.

I think that young people today being plugged in is just another name for dropped out or turned off. 90% or so of my university students cannot read and cannot comprehend what is read. They can copy and paste, cheating, but without even knowing the context of what they stole. Now, if I show them a video I have their attention, but then they cannot tell me anything meaningful about what they saw, but unlike a book, they can at least tell me what it was about, sort of. Reading, critical thinking, and other such things activate a different part of the brain than does passively watching a video or TV. If it is not on their iPad or smart phone they are not interested.

Your first sentence exhibits the very lack of reading comprehension you rail against in the following paragraph. Nothing I've said argues for a lack of morals, but rather the lack of general moral assignment to particular things that you hold dear. Unless of course you're prepared to argue the moral superiority of knowing who the 17th president was, versus knowing who Kanye West is dating currently? If so I'm all ears. (None of this is being said sarcastically, to be clear)
My apologies. I was joking, hence the :D afterwards. I was jokingly pointing out that this is the kind of thinking too many have today. I was not pointing at you and I did not mean to offend you.

Also, I'd like to point out that it's incredibly difficult to talk about this, since you're invariably comparing your perception of your generation with your perception of this generation (if you think that "a generation" is even a thing, which I actually don't). You are not, as many seem to think, comparing the absolute sums of each generation.

To bring it home with an example, were you a university teacher to your generation, when they were the age of this generation? Of course not, that's impossible. Unless of course you're a vampire or something. Assuming you're not a vampire (who I would definitely love to hear from on this topic, by the way), how do you know that 95% of the students in your generation did not suffer from some different, but equally odious fault? Maybe your generation didn't view it as a fault, but the previous one did. Maybe your generation didn't view it as a fault, but the next one did. Oh, now we're getting interesting. Maybe something like the civil rights movement? (not accusing anyone of anything here, just pointing out an example of something that a lot of people in one generation were complicit with, that the next generation didn't think was OK, and that people in general agree with the younger [in this example] generation)

And to be absolutely clear, I AGREE that reading comprehension and communication is abysmal. I even started a thread about it in this very forum! Seeing a "hear" instead of a "here," or a "their" instead of a "they're" is like fingernails on a chalkboard TO ME. However, my argument is for not assigning a moral value to care in communication, which is clearly not present to my standard, just because I have a standard.

The difficult thing about getting older is realizing that the things you valued actually might not be important anymore, or important ever again! This is as opposed to the notion that it's still important and everyone else is wrong for ignoring it. Maybe someday soon, they change the definition to make "their" an alternate form of "they're," so no one has to worry about that ever again. They did it with "biweekly," which can now mean twice a week, which should always have been "semiweekly," and completely confuses the definition. I happen to think this is totally asinine, but that's just me.

anagarika wrote:So biweekly is once every other week or twice a week? :eek:

Doc Dan wrote:

anagarika wrote:So biweekly is once every other week or twice a week? :eek:

Biweekly means every two weeks. Twice weekly and semiweekly mean twice a week.

bi- week- ly
[bahy-week-lee]
adjective
occurring every two weeks.
occurring twice a week; semiweekly

anagarika wrote:

Doc Dan wrote:

anagarika wrote:So biweekly is once every other week or twice a week? :eek:

Biweekly means every two weeks. Twice weekly and semiweekly mean twice a week.

That's my understanding as well. However, the link provided by tvenuto has contradictory meaning:

bi- week- ly
[bahy-week-lee]
adjective
occurring every two weeks.
occurring twice a week; semiweekly