I love articles like this because they basically reaffirm my world view -- internet = good, old fuddy-duddies = bad.

And I do agree with the basic premise that oftentimes the 'older' generation is guilty of quite a bit of hand wringing about the declining values of the younger generations (be they academic, moral, or social), when really there is nothing wrong with the new generation.

So as a card-carrying member of the Next Generation, I really wanted to agree that old people just don’t GET young people, and that we really are just as smart if not SMARTER than our parents.

But... 1 in 4 people didn't know who Adolf Hitler was? That is just. so. weak.

The problem isn't the internet. The problem is that since ye olde baby boomers, the education system has gone through quite a revolution. Instead of teaching kids to memorize facts or learn about events of historical significance, we went all postmodern and started teaching kids how to research, and got them looking at a single event in great detail.

Its good to teach kids how to research. This is why we're all so damn websavvy. Why bother memorizing something when you can just google it, or find it on wikipedia? Except, what my generation lost (to its detriment) was an understanding of what sort of things were important to look up in the first place. If you've never heard of Hitler, you're not going to be doing a wiki search about him, are you? Its a whole world of information you aren't exposed to.

Arguably for many teens, Hitler and the Holocaust are less immediately relevant than the contents of last night's episode of Lost. In the Long Term, WWII is clearly more important, but in the short term, Lost is. Kids are living in the short term. We haven't taught them why or how to live in the long term. Thats our failing, not theirs. And I hate to say it, but the internet doesn't help teach kids how to think long term. If anything, it makes 'flash in the pan' news and events even more powerful.

A big deal is being made about the Hitler question, but my understanding is that one of the answers to the question was that he was the German Chancellor during WWII, and one was that he was the German Kaiser during WWII.

I would be interested to see how many people of any age (well, any age not old enough to remember WWII) got this one right... I'd bet easily 1/4 of adults would trip up on this one too.

I can't say I'm totally convinced about this article (I'm on many of these social networking sites and the level of discourse is not exactly at the level of Great, or even Dan Brownesque, Literature). I also agree with Rowyna about the shift from regurgitating facts for a more touchy-feely exploring of very specific issues.

... think one would want to see the more intellectually brighter children developing some adult intellectual interests by the age of 17 and just "writing" is not enough if they are not developing writing skills and reading the great writers of the past and being inspired by them.

It probably isn't the end of the world, but are we developing an educated class to provide the leadership of the future? The fact that so many top jobs in science and medicine are being filled by immigrants suggests that we might be able to do a better job educating our indigenous children.

The beauty of the internet/iPod etc. is the ability to find and have exactly what you want, when you want it (assuming an internet connection). The downside is they haven't created a website or a podcast of "common sense" and "broad knowledge" for teenagers to download (or any of those other things we accuse teens of lacking).

I'm old. I'm a web freak. I poke my finger at my stepson when I find him amazingly lacking in broad knowledge or general common sense. Then I read Salon, skip the local news, and even skim The Onion while I download the only song I like from Maroon 5.

I can't criticize too much... but I can turn the computer off and take the cell phone away and make him have a conversation with real people who are in front of him, without using his phone to text them.

Every generation does a bit too much of something. According to my parents (boomers), my generation is a bit too boring.

Eventually we all grow up to be horrified about our children's behavior.

It is surprising, and a little discouraging, to me to hear people discuss the internet as if it contained nothing more than MySpace and Wikipedia. I'm surprised and discouraged because people don't realize the depth of the knowledge they could learn on the web, and because they don't make the effort to check, even though it would be easy.

I am youngish, and spent a large portion of my youth with access to the internet. When it "came out" (not in the sense that it was born, you understand, but that it had a big party where it wore a ravishing dress and danced the gavotte with eligible gentlemen) in 1996, what really excited people was its capacity for virtually unbounded growth.

I don't know how many people are in a position to check for themselves whether that growth is happening. Nonetheless, I am certain that it is.

The traditional strength of the internet is breadth of information, and the traditional weakness is depth. Wikipedia is a good example of this: easy to find a lot of detail on popular subjects; hard to find esoterica. Also, when you become an expert in anything, Wikipedia quickly becomes useless, because it won't know as much as you do on that subject. The Internet has been like that.

That is changing, however. I know the Internet is still growing at a fantastic rate, because my profession requires me to search for knowledge in depth, and every year, it gets easier to find that online, saving me a trip to the library (although nothing beats a really good library, yet).

I don't want to bore you, so I will present two examples, easy to navigate, constantly expanding:

Europa--http://europa.eu/: the leader in government websites, in my opinion. You'll be amazed what you can learn there, in dozens of languages.

Project Gutenberg--http://www.gutenberg.org: years ago this was in the news--trying to get all public domain writings online. They're still at it. The library is getting vast, and it's all free. Just browse through it. You could get a pretty good education just from this one site (a "great books" education). In another decade, it will be much better.

Sorry for this long post, but my point is, before you dismiss the Internet, understand it. It is way more than a bunch of hastily-written chat sessions and amateur videos (those can be fun too, though).

The kids who learn a lot are the ones who are hungry for knowledge. They'll find this stuff. You'll met some brilliant young man or woman, and be blown away by the depth of his or her knowledge. Just like they learned it from books.