The dumbest generation?

Video games have been very popular among teens (97% of them play video games). Many parents think that the video games are just simply a way for the children to be isolated in the dark and become very lazy people. However, research shows that there are actually some unexpected benefits from playing video games. One of the benefits from playing video games is the development of problem solving skills. Another benefit is that video games, especially multiplayer games, encourage children to communicate, play and solve problems together.

Many parents think that video games make children violent because of the violence in those games. However, in reality, many children prefer to play racing, puzzle games and sport games. This means that the parents do not have to be very concerned about children playing video games- the parents simply misunderstood the purpose of video games.

When it comes to children playing games or chatting or researching online, there are also unexpected benefits from doing it. Similar to video games, parents think that spending time online just makes the young generation lazy and lose their intelligence. Things invented in the last 20 years, such as video sharing sites, online games and iPods are now fixtures for youth culture, meaning that these things are now a part of a young person’s mind. These things have given many opportunities the previous generations did not have, such as social norms, exploring each other’s interests, developing technical skills and experimenting new forms of self-expression in websites such as Facebook, Youtube, MySpace etc. Ironically, despite being isolated in a room with a computer in front of you, it actually improves your social skills.

When it comes to researching things for education or work, the internet is a very good source of information to look at. The internet acts as a “portable library” if you want to call it. People these days can search for a wide variety of things on the internet, ranging from video games to help in your science homework. Plus, they can search what they are looking for in an instant, instead of searching for hours on which books have the information you are looking for.

I think that this generation is not really the dumbest but it is just different from the past generations. Computers and the internet were developed in this generation unlike the previous ones. The usage of the internet actually helps develop technical and social skills for the young generation. Because of this, the younger generation develops differently from the older generations. This causes the older generations to think that the younger generations are in the “wrong track” to their future. This is why the older generations dislike the younger generations.