The General Degredation of Society

[TinMan46]

Since this forum seems to be a pretty thoughtful and intelligent forum, I've decided to share with you my views on what I view as "The Degredation of Society" as a whole and how I, personally, believe that this generation of kids is fast becoming the least intelligence in recent history, thanks to the magic of technology such as Video Games and cell phones.

If you look around you today, what do you see? It's an absolute mess. Teenagers these days can't manage looking up from their tiny cell phone screens to pay attention to the environment around them for more than 10 seconds. In the past decade, you can easily see that we've hit a brick wall in the field of technological and medical advancements.What have our youth created lately, that will help further our civilization? Teleportation? Trips to mars? Moon bases? Cures for cancer. No, we have the wonderbra, and new ways to rapidly increase our weight and decrease our life expectancy. Kids are paying less attention to getting a decent education and more attention to how many space marines they've killed, or when the next binge drinking party is. If humanity continues this trend of decreasing intelligence I fear that we may dig ourselves into a rut that will be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to get out of!

For example, when cell phones first got text messaging, people thought it was amazing. But the small, difficult way to type messages eventually led to "Textspeak", very grammetically incorrect form of the English language that I am sure you are all familiar with. It's moved from Text messaging to the internet, and within the next few years I believe this trend will be picked up and used by more and more adolescents, eventually overtaking and crippling the English language. It's what I believe to be a very serious problem.

People, if we don't do something soon to radically change the behavior and outlook on our childrens' life, we're going to have a serious decline in general intelligence all over the world. The children are our future, and if we don't do something, we are going to be in deep trouble.

[devonin]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

In the past decade, you can easily see that we've hit a brick wall in the field of technological and medical advancements.

People who are still kids today have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with whether there are advancements in techonology or medicine. People who were kids 30 years ago (Back before widespread use of cellphones and video games) are the ones responsible for any lack of advancement. So even if there -is- lack of advancement, there's no connection at all to use of cellphones or video games.

What have our youth created lately

Our youth are supposed to create anything? They're still being educated.

Teleportation? Trips to mars? Moon bases? Cures for cancer.

So just because a few specific advancements you think would be cool (We don't need trips to mars [ though we've made several with devices ] and bases on the moon are perfectly doable with current technology just not worth it) doesn't mean no advancements have happened.

No, we have the wonderbra, and new ways to rapidly increase our weight and decrease our life expectancy.

Wonderbra is like 40 years old dude. And in addition to the creation of various consumer products that if used like a moron can cause you to gain weight, we've also developed all kinds of great ways for people to get exercise and lose weight.

For example, when cell phones first got text messaging, people thought it was amazing. But the small, difficult way to type messages eventually led to "Textspeak", very grammetically incorrect form of the English language that I am sure you are all familiar with. It's moved from Text messaging to the internet, and within the next few years I believe this trend will be picked up and used by more and more adolescents, eventually overtaking and crippling the English language. It's what I believe to be a very serious problem.

Because the english language has existed unchanged and sacrosanct for thousands of years right? English is only 1600 years old, and 'modern english' is only about 500 years old. The language is developing, and if some of us (myself included) don't like the 'textspeak' method of adapting the language, if it gains enough widespread use, it will -become- let's call it 'postmodern' english. We won't like it, but it isn't automatically "bad" just because we don't.

People, if we don't do something soon to radically change the behavior and outlook on our childrens' life

That's on the parents, yes? And the educators? Not a forum full of teenagers.

[foilman8805]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

devonin already hit on what I was going to say. Considering that most youth (which, for the sake of this argument, I will include myself) are still in school, how the hell do you expect me to create anything? I'm still learning. I guess I don't fit into your vision of society either since I'm pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering huh...

And can we just step out of the debate here and focus on what you think is important for a second: teleportation and trips to Mars? Cures for cancer? How about we just work on getting everyone on this planet food and water first. One step at a time, Christ.

Last, rather than focusing on the adaptation of the English language to 160 character limit text messages, why don't you consider the advancement in the nano-technology that allows your cellphone to even do that **** to begin with! I have a phone that is less than 4 inches in length and half an inch thick with a full keyboard, email access, internet access, a 2 megapixel camera for photos and video, a microSD slot that allows me to put a 2GB memory card smaller than a dime into my phone for extra memory, mp3 music playback...the list goes on. I find that incredible, and I appreciate the advancements in the technology that have allowed me to even own this device.

One more thing...how is a human being's intelligence in anyway related text messaging? Isn't that something that is generally a product of genetics?

[Sullyman2007]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

In the past decade, you can easily see that we've hit a brick wall in the field of technological and medical advancements

That's just silly. I'm sorry OP but think about what you just said. What's that statistic you always hear? It's something like "we've advanced more in the past 50 years than we have is the past 200". Something like that, right? Even so, how can you blame the pace of advancement, or 'degradation', as you put it, on a generation who has only existed two or three decades.

You are asking a forum of primarily 16-21 year olds why they haven't been 'paying attention to their environment' or 'looking up from their cell phones'. I can't speak for this entire community, but I just started college. I plan on pursuing Radiology, and who knows, maybe one day I might help develop a cure for cancer.

[Reach]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Last, rather than focusing on the adaptation of the English language to 160 character limit text messages, why don't you consider the advancement in the nano-technology that allows your cellphone to even do that **** to begin with! I have a phone that is less than 4 inches in length and half an inch thick with a full keyboard, email access, internet access, a 2 megapixel camera for photos and video, a microSD slot that allows me to put a 2GB memory card smaller than a dime into my phone for extra memory, mp3 music playback...the list goes on. I find that incredible, and I appreciate the advancements in the technology that have allowed me to even own this device.

Ditto. Seriously, nobody I know really appreciates how advances in computer science and quantum physics effect our everyday lives. So many things we take for granted on a daily basis wouldn't be possible without the extraordinary leaps and bounds we've made in technology over the past few decades. I suppose you don't really *need* to understand or appreciate something like quantum physics to build cool stuff, but I think it's something important to note.


With that said though, society could be in for trouble in the future, just not for the reasons specified by the OP.

Statistically speaking, we're probably talking about the most intelligent generation on record. University attendances are up and test scores are through the roof - competition at the highest level of academia is more intense than it has ever been before. Academia is a feeding frenzy. Sure, more people are using technology and some of those people are doing it in not so intelligent ways - I wouldn't necessarily call that a decline in general intelligence though. That has happened throughout every generation.

It's more of a cultural shift of the zeitgeist. For example, kids vocabulary sizes aren't getting smaller - they're just filling that vocabulary with different words than their parents did. IQ scores are certainly not going down (Well, I'll get to that), and they're probably the biggest predictor of academic success and ability to contribute to society in useful ways.


However, we are saddling our future generations with some of our mistakes. If you want to talk about declines in general intelligence, that could be possible. This highly competitive society gives little reason or incentive for intelligent people to have large amounts of children, but ample reason for...'others' that are most definitely less intelligent to have copious amounts of children. IQ scores have generally been on the rise for the past century, though this so called 'Flynn effect' died out completely about 10-20 years ago in most developed countries.

It's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that this trend could reverse and general intelligence could decline, but that has more to do with reasons outside of the hands of scientists and people making leading breakthroughs in technology.


We're also saddling future generations with the lack of response on the issue of global warming, but that's another topic entirely.


People need to be educated more and more as this world gets increasingly complex - there are constantly more and more complex issues on the rise that generate the need for intelligent people. And in many respects, we lack those people. There are often people in charge that are making decisions that don't know what they're doing. However, I wouldn't take that and then jump to the conclusion that society itself is degrading. Rather, it's more of a matter of getting a little ahead of ourselves on issues we might not be capable of dealing with yet.

[rajdaddy]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Im pretty positive you stole this from somewhere in a attempt to be intelligent, but you failed miserably.


but i agree man, this world is full of idiotic people, you being one of them.

We're also saddling future generations with the lack of response on the issue of global warming, but that's another topic entirely.

Global Warming is a hoax, John Kerry is using it to sell you his carbon tax idiot.
You are obviously one of the idiotic people i mentioned above

I plan on pursuing Radiology, and who knows, maybe one day I might help develop a cure for cancer.

The cure for cancer has already been found in the form of Hemp Oil.

Let the insults and flaming begin, I could care less, i don't plan on coming back to this page.

[Reach]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Global Warming is a hoax, John Kerry is using it to sell you his carbon tax idiot.
You are obviously one of the idiotic people i mentioned above

Please provide even a single iota of scientific evidence that has been replicated on some level and published in a respectable scientific journal that does not support the notion of anthropogenic global warming.


I don't like calling names, but I am calling you out here, because you have no idea what you're talking about and are incredibly rude.

Post something respectful and intellectual or leave, please.

Im pretty positive you stole this from somewhere

I'm interested to see what information I posted has been stolen. Please, by all means, give me a link or reference.

Let the insults and flaming begin, I could care less, i don't plan on coming back to this page.

Well, in that case I've wasted my time, but I guess we can ban him. Blatant trolling.


Trolling or not, the problem with idiots is they perceive themselves to be as smart or smarter than the intelligent people, and therein lies their stupidity.

I guess that's where Devonin comes in.

[devonin]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Let the insults and flaming begin, I could care less, i don't plan on coming back to this page.

YOu could care less, which means you do care. Luckily, I don't. Go away, never come back.

[TinMan46]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Sorry guys, but you're all wrong. I guess you just don't have the mental capacity to understand my views on this.

[foilman8805]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Sorry guys, but you're all wrong. I guess you just don't have the mental capacity to understand my views on this.

lmao oh

[Wineandbread]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Actually, I recently read "Empire Falls" by Niall Ferguson recently for my World History class. It placed a pretty large emphasis on cultural degradation of Western civilization as evidence of the decline of the West. But I don't agree with a lot of what he says.

I agree largely with what Reach has to say. Technological advances seems to scale with the need for intelligent people to operate and further development for new technology. Sure, it also simplifies daily life and makes us use less effort to accomplish otherwise difficult or tedious tasks, but I don't see how that could be ruled cultural degradation.

We're still trying to put moon bases and cure cancer too. It's just a slow process. There's a lot of inventions that happen by accident, and perhaps that accident just hasn't occurred yet.

[Ice wolf]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

I agree largely with what Reach has to say. Technological advances seems to scale with the need for intelligent people to operate and further development for new technology. Sure, it also simplifies daily life and makes us use less effort to accomplish otherwise difficult or tedious tasks, but I don't see how that could be ruled cultural degradation.

To add on to what you said:

Even though these technological advances may simplify our lives to a point where some consider our culture in decline, they could allow us to make even further advances because we will have cleared ourselves a path through which we can more easily attain technological advances that were once out of our reach, be it a cure for cancer or landing humans on Mars.

[qqwref]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Teleportation? Trips to mars? Moon bases? Cures for cancer.

If you want to look at how technology is advancing, the best way to do it isn't to look at random stuff you think ought to be invented in The Future. Teleportation is (as far as we know) impossible without a massive energy input (it takes a surprising amount of energy to teleport even a single particle); space exploration is far too costly and doesn't have nearly enough benefits for humanity to keep attempting it; and many people are working on cancer cures but, as it seems to be an extremely difficult problem, there is no success so far. Same for curing AIDS.

There HAS been a lot of advancing technology recently, though. As foilman8805 pointed out, computers and electronic devices have improved drastically in all respects in the last decade - we have better computing power, better graphics, more memory, and smaller devices, and all of these things have advanced to the point where an electronic device from 10 years ago is basically unusable. The amount of nanotechnology and information technology that has gone into these developments is amazing, but since it's so physically tiny I think it's difficult for many people to notice how much we have advanced. Our understanding of DNA and cell mechanisms has gotten much more advanced too, to the point where we are beginning to be able to make vaccines that work at a molecular level to identify and kill infected or cancerous cells. It may look like there have been no important advances, but more scientific papers are being written now than ever before.


As for the degradation of society, I don't think it is as simple as just saying "look, we are spending all of our time txt msging and can't pay attention to anything". Teenagers and young adults today are part of essentially the first generation to be brought up with the internet. Nowadays, you can post something on youtube or twitter and hundreds of people from around the world can see it within a few minutes. A lot of the things that people used to think of as important are now irrelevant because of the internet - for instance, there's no point in memorizing speeches or poems (or geographical features, or equations, or historical events) if you can look them up on Google in seconds, but if those are the standards you are judging people by, you can't expect teenagers to have as much knowledge in those areas as people who are 30 years older.

Since we're the first generation to be so involved in this kind of stuff, we're having a lot of trouble trying to figure out where our place is in the new globally interlinked world. I think that the reason young people today seem so unconcerned with the real world is that the real world has started to become, in some ways, obsolete. Now that it's possible to essentially live your entire life on your computer - order food, pay bills, go shopping, hang out with friends, do almost any type of work, write and publish articles - you could argue that it is instead the older generations who are not paying attention to the world. You have the right to criticize teenagers for not paying as much attention to reality as they should, but you should realize that your criterion for success is biased, because it comes from a world where the technology that is ubiquitous today hadn't even been conceived of.

[devonin]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

Sorry guys, but you're all wrong. I guess you just don't have the mental capacity to understand my views on this.

Go away and come back when you aren't 12.

Let me rephrase more clearly: You post in this forum again before you've learned how to respect the other users of this forum, and I will ban you.

[TC_Halogen]

Re: The General Degredation of Society

This is an amazing topic. Too bad the person who posted it has a really bad attitude.

Let me start by saying that I, along with probably everybody else who has posted--will disagree with the theory of technology not making advancements. Look right in front of you! You're using a decently small object that holds at least fifty keys to communicate your thoughts to others via boxes that can somehow register your exact buttons each and every time (assuming they do not break down). And that's just the simple job of a keyboard.

why don't you consider the advancement in the nano-technology that allows your cellphone to even do that **** to begin with! I have a phone that is less than 4 inches in length and half an inch thick with a full keyboard, email access, internet access, a 2 megapixel camera for photos and video, a microSD slot that allows me to put a 2GB memory card smaller than a dime into my phone for extra memory, mp3 music playback...the list goes on. I find that incredible, and I appreciate the advancements in the technology that have allowed me to even own this device.

Exactly this--nano-technology is absolutely amazing in the capabilities that it has. You can use an object the size of the palm of your hand, powered by a battery as thick as only a single finger, to talk with someone on the other side of the globe.

Degradation of society: I'm going to speak for myself, as far as this goes:

If you look around you today, what do you see? It's an absolute mess. Teenagers these days can't manage looking up from their tiny cell phone screens to pay attention to the environment around them for more than 10 seconds.

Don't simply attribute this to teenagers only--adults are guilty for this as well. Take the city of Chicago as a good example. A while ago, there were not any laws telling people that they could not talk on their cellular phones while driving. Yes--it's a given, people should not be doing it in the first place, but it shows that adults are also willing to prioritize their new technology over the safety of their driving.

What have our youth created lately, that will help further our civilization? Teleportation? Trips to mars? Moon bases? Cures for cancer.

The youth should not be responsible for creating new advancements until that specific generation has been taught through proper schooling on how to do some of these things. With that said--there has been medical advancements on smaller operations. Let's take eye surgery. Now, you can repair vision problems through laser surgery, something that wasn't available say, 10 years ago.

People, if we don't do something soon to radically change the behavior and outlook on our childrens' life, we're going to have a serious decline in general intelligence all over the world. The children are our future, and if we don't do something, we are going to be in deep trouble.

I wouldn't say there would be a serious decline in general intelligence; you do have to proper school your children regardless of technology. However, I do believe that reliance on technology will increase; things that people were able to do on their own with hard labor, say, fixing cars, may be a bit easier if technology advances itself more. This is just one example.

Overall, I wouldn't say society hasn't degraded, but I will say that people do rely on technology much more than they did five to ten years ago, and it's probably guaranteed that reliance on these technologies will get exponentially higher.

Which brings me to a thought of my own: what happens if all forms technology suddenly stops working, like a future Y2K? Sure, it may sound like a dumb thing to think about, but imagine it. No television, no cellular phones, no computers, no forms of communication, etc. Would the reliance on technology that is likely to build be more problematic than it would be now?

That's all of my thoughts for now. (Man: I really need to post here more, this is only my third time O.o)