Computers Make Kids Dumb

[Kazuya]

Yep. You read the thread title correctly, now read why:
http://www.channelregister.co.uk/200...how_dumb_kids/
Edit: Might as well check out their handy download page for some PC tools.

Or I could sum it up with one sentence from the page:
"The negative correlation, the researchers explain, is because children with computers neglect their homework more."

Are you getting dumber and dumber by the day staring at your computer?
Do you disagree with the article? Why?
Just tell us what you think.

[Cyberxion]

I didn't have a computer growing up, and I still turned out as dumb as a rock.

[Vivi]

Computers have helped my spelling alot. before I came here to EP I had troubles spelling simple words and didn't no where to put 's and what not. So I proved that theory wrong!

[Schutzstaffel]

I didn't have a computer when I was growing up, either. I didn't have any gaming systems or whatever other fancy electronic crap there was in the early 90's.


I like to think I turned out fine, but chances are I'm just as dumb as a rock. Possibly dumber.

[Winged 2.0]

I believe that it makes a few people stupid. The people that I am talking about are the ones that use thier computer for MSN, Email, and Flash games/videos. However, if you excel in computers and learn new software/hardware, your mind will expand. Even visiting a message board where the members know how to string sentences together decently will help you.

[brit]

Sheer comedy. It's not the computer's fault that some 15 year old doesn't appreciate the wealth of information that is Google. And whether you have five or 500 books in your house doesn't mean you are going to read any of them. And just like Vivi. This place has taught me a lot. Like how to seperate 'a' & 'lot'.

[abcme]

I started out with dos games, back in 1995 or 1996. Ever since then, I was above average in my classes, but now I'm below average.
My High School is filled with over achievers that whine about a B, which is something I should be doing too, but still. I'd be happy if I had all A's but 1 B.

[Valholy]

Well in my case,ive learned to much with my computer i didnt grow with one but since the time i got mine i learned much things,i guess theyre right in some way because some people just print the pages without reading them and then give them as their homework without reading the useful information that they could use to pass exams etc,in my case i do the same but im not that dumb i get good grades at my subject�s,i even improved my english with my computer since i got inside emuparadise ,also ive learned other useful things thanks to you guys i even learned how to softmod..... i guess those things arent subjects at school but i think that people gets more knowledge investigating what they like with a computer,some people may use it just to do homework but for all those people like us i think that the computers dont make people dumb,if you use it the right way you can know lots of things,in my career im studying things that i learned before our teacher even started teaching us,i know that im not a kid anymore but ive met kids that actually know lots of things and they impress me,how did they learn it? computers, and those kind of things are things that only college students know,perhaps a new generation of kids ,so i guess that the theory is wrong just because of all the things i already posted before

[Mistral]

Many of today's debaters prefer "Fisking" - line-by-line rebuttals where facts are dropped like radar chaff - to rational debate or building a coherent argument.

Anyways...this is actually rather interesting. I had a computer as a child, but I was always a reader rather than a gamer, so I certainly would be an aberration by their standards for literacy. Then again, my grades dramatically fell during high school as I began to care less and less about school. Admittedly, that apathy was a symptom of a deeper ill than a direct causation from a rise in gaming at about the same time, though there was a similar causation to gaming and reading to that root, but that's rather besides the point, again, and not relevant to here.

The biggest problem is that children don't know what to do with what they're getting from computers and the Internet, from that article. Just cutting the children off from data won't solve the problem, since they'll have to deal with the problems caused by the data glut eventually. Unfortunately, dealing with it would require a shift in teaching methods from an extremely early age, but no one really knows how to make it work better. It may well work in the short term to just cut off children from computers, but that is not a valid long-term solution, to be frank. The world is data just as much as it is the physical reality, information as well as processing, and there is no way to turn back the clock. It'll be tough, but I'm sure a way can be found without losing one or the other.
...
Now if only I knew what it could be...

[Solitude]

Depends on how you exploit it doesn't it? When I was around 10, my elder sister was going bonkers over e-mail/MSN Messenger,whereas i mostly ignored the Internet as far as I could.
When I was 12, i realised Google was infinite times more powerful than Encarta for Holiday Homework research.
When I was 14 I learnt C++ programming completely through Google links.

I'm now nearing 16,and my sister is 20, she still hasn't learnt anything beyond e-mailing.......unless you count Microsoft Word

[micral]

"The negative correlation, the researchers explain, is because children with computers neglect their homework more."

it depends on how they define dumb. if u got low grades in school = ur dumb then yes. ever since i've been into computers, it has sucked up all my time and motivation for school stuff. but similar to solitude i started learning basic when i was 12, then c++ and asm when i was 14, and right now a lot of 20-year-olds in my comp. sci. class can't even finish their c++ homework.

[brit]

it depends on how they define dumb. if u got low grades in school = ur dumb then yes. ever since i've been into computers, it has sucked up all my time and motivation for school stuff. but similar to solitude i started learning basic when i was 12, then c++ and asm when i was 14, and right now a lot of 20-year-olds in my comp. sci. class can't even finish their c++ homework.

Low grades don't determine intelligence or lack thereof. Low grades show how much work you are willing to do. I never did any homework and I aced the tests and quizzes. This kept my grades pretty high, actually. But if you were to look at my assignments, you would call me lazy--but never stupid or dumb. I have come to the conclusion that this article is worthless. It's a nice though, but not one worth entertaining, let alone accepting.

[Skinner8]

Low grades don't determine intelligence or lack thereof. Low grades show how much work you are willing to do. I never did any homework and I aced the tests and quizzes. This kept my grades pretty high, actually. But if you were to look at my assignments, you would call me lazy--but never stupid or dumb. I have come to the conclusion that this article is worthless. It's a nice though, but not one worth entertaining, let alone accepting.

Mmhm. Due to the way my schools have always thought what you do during classes and such is more important than test results, I've never gotten very good grades in anything except English, but me being dumber than the morons in my class who get better grades than me by always turning in their work on time even if it's basically crap and try to answer every one of the teacher's questions in class even though they're wrong a good deal of the time... No. Me being drawn in to the world of Internet (it's not about computers or games themselves that much for me) four years ago has taught me some things about the world and changed some of my perspectives, but to say I haven't grown as a person lately - especially from the start of 2004, when I finally got a broadband connection - would be telling a blatant lie.

[20by20]

Hey! I've been using PC's since I was 4, and I turned out to be an A+ student. See? Maybe the people who wrote the article are dumb?

[Dark Neighbour]

I think it may have something to do with a persons ideas of the future

"I don't need to work in school. Wanna know why? Because my job will be taken over by a machine, and I'll be made redundant. Huzzah..."

Typical teenager aspect.
I've been computerized since I was old enough to push a button. Memories of staying up to the wee hours of 9-9:30 pm playing Hangman on an IBM 80806 4 MHz Personal Computerized Entertainment Machine come back to me all the time.

Those were the days, everything ran at 60 FPS, cause nothing moved.