Are We Too "Dumbed Down"?

Are we “dumbing down” too much? Now with high tech gadgets, it seems that people are just not thinking as much as they used to. It seems that Americans can't spell, can't find anything on a map, can't do math and don't care about anything, except football scores and celebrity gossip, anymore.

 For example; now that we store important phone numbers in our cell phones, most of us don’t bother to memorize phone numbers anymore. That’s not always a good thing. Some people who get arrested on a Friday, for example, could be out and about within hours if they had a number of a friend or a relative to get them out. Because cell phones are taken away, upon entering jail, the person who can’t remember a number might end up in jail for the entire weekend.

 Another problem is associated with texting. People now try to make up abbreviations that are neither official nor universal. I was playing an online game of “The Price is Right” and somebody in the chat area tried to wish me good luck by typing “GL”. I understood it as an insult, thinking it meant “get lost”.

 Texting also causes another problem. Children are now using these “abbreviations” in normal school work. Teachers are dealing with term papers with such things as “ur” instead of “your”, or “r u” instead of “are you”, in them. It seems students now don’t think spelling and grammar are important anymore.

  Must the word “like” be used 30 times per minute? I recently was walking down 7^th Avenue in Manhattan, when a young person pointed towards 42^nd Street and asked me, “Is that like Times Square?”  I spontaneously answered, “No, it’s the real thing!”, not realizing he was asking for directions.

  I recently went back to Suffolk Community College to finish my degree in radio and television. I was amazed at what I saw at the college level. For example, in my geography class, I heard a student say, “Just teach me what will be on the test".

  Another student in my public speaking class told me, “I thought this was going to be just making speeches. I didn't think there was going to be homework".

  Even modern music seems to be “dumbing down”. I know Katy Perry isn’t Mozart, but "California Gurls" leaves nothing to the imagination. I guess metaphores and similes require too much thinking. You have to be as frank and offensive as possible now. "Sex on the beach. We've got white sand in our stilettos". Is that even fit for radio?

 Nevermind the spelling of “gurls”. We now have TV networks such us “SyFy” and “Tru TV”. The Wendy’s sign on Route 109 in Farmingdale says, “D Thru  ‘till 2am” Is that even English?

 I recently saw Jay Leno ask a lady on his “Jaywalking” segment, who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She didn’t have a clue. Yet, when he asked her who lives in a pineapple under the sea, she yelled out, “Spongebob!”

 If you think that’s frightening, an Australian TV reporter was asking people in Times Square when 9/11 happened. He was getting answers like, “October” and “September 9^th."

 I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. I tried looking up which countries are now number one. China is number one in math, Finland is number one in reading and Japan in number one in science. The only thing America seems to be number one at is teen pregnancies (within the industrialized nations)!

 Maybe it’s just me. I might be too old fashioned or not up to speed with the new “dumbed down” America. Am I making too big of a deal over this? Should I worry about the future of the U.S.A. or is this just a phase we are going through?