The value of history?!
(What amazes me more actually is that apparently FIVE PERCENT of those polled couldn't remember the MONTH & DATE of September 11th!!)
September 11 -- what year? 30 percent of Americans don't know - Yahoo! News
Saturday, August 19, 2006
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6 comments:
In today's fast paced society, you really can’t expect Americans to know the "important" facts or even the note worthy. (I feel everything has a certain level of importance to everyone) I can almost guarantee you that out of those same people most they can name off the top ten of the music charts. With technology and entertainment constantly on the up rise, yesterday is becoming old news, and a week ago is now ancient history. You find this effect in all aspects of life ranging from relationships to attention spans of people. America is going through its own Attention Deficit Disorder.
Interesting comment! What does the rest of the class think? Do you agree with Seth? Why or why not??
I believe that it is attributed to aging America becoming jaded by all the events that are happening in modern society. It seems that things are less important the longer one lives.
"48 percent of those who did not know were between the ages of 55 and 64, and 47 percent were older than 65, according to the poll."
That is a total of 95 percent of those that do not know being 55 or older, which leaves 1.5 percent of the 30 falling into the “younger than 55” crowd. If the survey question had been changed to something such as "When was Kennedy shot?" The older population would identify with it more easily.
From my perception modern humans have as much of a perception of the future as the men from the jungle that wanted to become farmers. Look at the way we pollute earth and tear down forests, we want everything now, now, now with very little thought of the future. Violence in society is a product of “the now” also. I don't believe that this Attention Deficit Disorder is a new concept, I just believe that it is taking another form in that of media and technology, instead of food and wealth like it may have in our history.
also the yahoo link is dead. here is a mirror.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/100806whatyear.htm
First of all, thanks for the mirror!
Secondly, you raise some interesting points... The older crowd which seemed to have a greater problem identifying the year of 9/11 isn't exactly the group usually associated with the short-attention-span media revolution. Indeed, would we actually find "plugged-in" youth instead more aware of global events? Or would they have to be global events which at least feature Paris Hilton?? :-)
So, what do you think? Have humans simply always had other priorities, like Philip interestingly suggests, or is it a new phenomenon, like a kind of product of information overload??
Curious about ya'll's reaction!
:-)
Dr. Laughran
After reading the article and both Seth and Philip’s interpretations, I have to agree with what they are both saying. The majority of people are so used to a society of constant violence that we have been trained to tune it out. For example, when ever I turn on the news, the majority of the stories have something to do with violence either in own our country or some where else in the world. There have been so many incidents that have happened over the past five years that it has become very difficult to remember when each event occurred. I know myself that I knew what year September 11th occurred but I do not remember if we entered Iraq the same year or in 2002. The majority of people today are so tired of hearing about tragedy and violence that we tend to try to ignore and therefore we forget simple things such as the year September 11th occurred.
As for the remainder of the population that was under the age of 55, they have most likely lost interest in the news today. When elections occur, the candidates always try to win the “teenage” vote because the majority of the population is becoming teenagers. Unfortunately, the majority of the teenagers do not care enough to vote in an election. We tend to not pay attention to the politics during the year and by the time an election comes we have no idea what it is we are voting for. I know that if it wasn’t for my parents encouraging me to pay attention to the news, I wouldn’t have voted in my town’s election. This is mostly because of the laid back attitude that most teenagers have. We tend to procrastinate figuring we only have to do what is required to succeed in life and we end up giving away our rights that so many people fought for us to have. It is because of their unconcerned view of the world around them that the majority of the teenage population refuses to vote or pay attention to the news around them.
~Christina~
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