Transcripts

Susan Jacoby:
A National Geographic-Roper poll two years ago of eighteen to twenty-five year olds, showed only23% of those who'd gone to college could identify Iraq, Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia on a map. And this, by the way, is on a map where the names of the countries were written in.

Susan Jacoby, author of the book The Age of American Unreason…

But worse than that, asked if they thought it was important for Americans to know the locations of other countries in which news is being made, they said, "No". Now not knowing where Iraq is is ignorant - saying it doesn't matter has "ignorant and proud of it" stamped on your forehead. In addition, we know very little about our own history - the majority of Americans can't tell you what rights are guaranteed in the first amendment. Two thirds of Americans don't know that DNA is the key to heredity - that's a dumb culture.

Susan says another problem is television - not only do we watch a lot of it but we tend to watch it while we're trying to do other things.

If you're watching TV or if you're watching You Tube and you've got a term paper assignment or a book in the other hand, you're probably not doing the kind of job you should be doing. We all are not as good at multi-tasking as we think we are. The acquisition of knowledge is an active process that requires (I hate to say this) some work.

Tomorrow more on the dumbing down of America - I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.