Hopefully this smart-sounding post will prove that I am not a product of the internet's mass mediocrity.

In reading excerpts from "Distracted" and "The Dumbest Generation" by Maggie Jackson and Mark Bauerlein respectively, I thought of a topic we've discussed in class--mass mediocrity. It seems as though the influx of media, of entertainment, isn't just making our output mediocre, but it's making us mediocre--things like the whiny, misspelled blogs of preteens and 20-second video clips of drunken frat party antics aren't just products of LiveJournal or Youtube, they are reflections of the people behind them. The equalizing nature of the internet isn't what makes the content dumb--it's the lack of attention span resulting from the ease of distracting ourselves with the vast amount of media available. There's a mass mediocrity of personality.

This brings to mind something I saw on my floormate's blog for her Honors Humanities class:

I wonder if we'll evolve or find a way to function so that our attention spans are used to the best of their ability-- as Bauerlin mentioned, there is such a rich array of information that is underused. Maybe people will find a way to make this information into entertainment in a way that will foster actual understanding, rather than superficial bullets or outlines. I mean, I'll admit that I don't go out and seek news just for the purpose of enriching my knowledge, and I'm not very well-versed in what's going on in the world. I don't like to watch TV or listen to the radio, though, so maybe I'm not quite the same demographic described in these two excerpts--at least, I hope I'm not!