Mental Health survey and Information Literacy presentation thoughts
Thought some of you might be interested in this latest from the ABS blog, Statistically speaking - http://abs4libraries.blogspot.com/2008/10/mental-health-wellbeing.htmlRead more... )
We form knowledge through interacting with information, primarily through interacting with people, and through reading.
And yes, there are a substantial proportion of this generation who only read things superficially, and probably cut-and-paste snippets from a basic google search and hand it in as homework.
But guess what - a lot of high school students did the equivalent when I was in high school, whether it was copying things out of an encyclopaedia, or cutting-and-pasting from a Microsoft Encarta CD-ROM. A generation earlier, it might have been students undergoing study through rote-learning. Basically, it's called doing the least amount of work to pass high-school.
A lot of people are stupid, lazy and/or simply don't care. And they don't want to. It's not indicative of a generation, or its association. It's just a proportion of our society, irrespective of age or background.
But, for fuck's sake, to assume that just because young people are "always online", that they've lost the capacity to read, say, a book or a newspaper or a journal, and fully comprehend its information, is IMHO offensive and ignorant. I think, if anything, the fact that young people are comfortable with emerging technology, paired with prolific reading patterns, means that they're able to engage and share with their peers on an intelligent level, in real-time on a global scale.
Besides, there are plenty of smart, savvy kids out there. Just because they don't play by the same rules as the Baby Boomers and GenX'ers is no excuse to dismiss their opinions.
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