definitely NOT the greatest generation

[veronica_rich]

This falls in the category of 'Oh dear Dog, how stupid ARE you?'

There are two things in here that stand out as annoying and offensive to me:

1. When I was a kid and hadn't heard of something, I had to go look it up in a book or ask a teacher or my parents (or grandparents, whatever). We didn't have the Internet; hell, I was lucky I had an Atari 2600 and Pitfall for it. The point is, there was no ten-second point-and-click research. BUT REGARDLESS, THERE ARE THINGS YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TO LOOK UP OR ASK ABOUT IF YOU'RE OLDER THAN, OH, NINE. "Was the Titanic real?" Are YOU for real? I knew about the Titanic literally decades before James Cameron told us about it.

I don't think I'm being culturally privileged; you people literally have the easiest research tool in the history of ever. The only way you could find things easier is if Servo the Robot could read your mind and download information directly into your brain as soon as you wonder something. If you have the privilege of access to Twitter, you probably have the privilege of Internet access, too. So don't give me that.

2. No, don't go "wikipedia" something. Use a real source. Take a few minutes to verify it by crosschecking. Wikipedia is good for killing time or bullshit, or finding external links to real sources. Period.

Comments

[johnnypenn.livejournal.com]

I remember when I looked stuff up in my parents huge encyclopedia series. If I ever had to write a report, that and books from the library was what I used. Even when the Internet was introduce, I till used books because Mom and Dad were rather paranoid about it.

I don't mind Wikipedia, but I agree that cross checking references is a good practice to have.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, yes, the encyclopedias; we had those. Kids should always learn to use paper and people sources before anything else, IMO.

[day221b.livejournal.com]

I remember the Titanic debacle from a month or so back and was appalled. This is no different. It's just sad. I won't even comment on the dumb, and it's just plain lazy. It's also very telling of our culture and where it's heading.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

It's crazy, man.

[janamelie.livejournal.com]

I remember the Titanic Twitter thing too. If you were being really generous, you could attribute that to films not being seen as "real". But yes, I knew about the Titanic when I was a kid. It was just one of those things you learnt about by reading a book or newspaper, watching TV or asking your parents.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

You know, if I liked a movie or a book enough, I generally went to look up the subject matter somewhere, even if it was fictional (like the hypotheses on Atlantis). But Titanic - I mean, James Cameron has been bleating on for 15 years about the real ship and how many hundreds of times he's gone down to visit it, LOL.

[kronette.livejournal.com]

I don't...I can't... WTF? How young are the people on twitter to not know who the Beastie Boys are? Yeah, I knew one of their names was Adam, but hell, a quick google search told me who he was. I won't even get into the horror of seeing the Titanic twittersode.

Before Teh Interwebs, I would call my grandmother if I had a question about cooking, my grandpa about math, my dad about cars, etc etc. Even today if I need to know something, I'll either call mom if I'm being extremely lazy or I'll google it (and NOT USE WIKIPEDIA DEAR LORD WHY). My niece did a report on Walt Disney and she was using wikipedia (she's 11), and I refused to allow her to cite those pages. I found the real information on Disney's site, plus his IMDB (Which I know isn't a whole lot better, but using that, I was able to find "legit" resources). I don't think teachers should allow Wikipedia as a resource. Ban it, make the kids look a bit harder than the first 3 returns on google, and LEARN SOME SH**.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Google is just super-easy. Now, granted, you might not get the correct reference on your first hit; it will require some supplementary research to figure out if you've got a reputable source, but shoot, that still takes less time than looking it up in paper form or finding the right person to call (which I did for years as a reporter, and still have to as an editor if I suspect something isn't correct).

[(Anonymous)]

There are some very good individual wikis however. The one for Pet Diabetes has more info than you will find in any vet's office and it is accurate. I have looked up cities on wikipedia and thought the info was reliable, obviously if the city's government cares about how it's represented online it will have accurate info.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

The problem is, anyone can go into these pages and edit the information - you don't have to prove you're an expert, either through education or experience. I could go put something on those pages.

Wikipedia is good for external links at the bottom and the citation links; that's where you're supposed to be able to find the information compiled in the wiki entry itself. I refuse to let my writers cite Wikipedia for their articles; I've yelled at them for trying. Of course, if you're just an average person, you might get an idea from the W to go look it up elsewhere to verify it - but there are a lot of young people who don't know to do that. Scary!

[heartofslash.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, when seeking a fact, my daughter will call me and ask, while her friends look up the answer on their smartphones.

I am usually faster than Symon's iphone4.

Heh.

But then, my Dwarf used the iphone his company gave him to show a youtube video to his apprentice about how to calculate a complex mitre joint cut angle. I would not have been able to help with that at all. (So far, it's the only thing he's used the iphone for other than as a phone.)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

We get used to the resources we have at our fingertips; I certainly wouldn't want to go without my smart phone and Google - but if I had to, I know how. I'm afraid we're raising generations of future (and current!) workers who don't know a paper bibliography from their ass. Maybe I'm ageist, but I sort of feel like Google and the Internet are things a kid should get to graduate to when they're about 15 or 16 - after they've learned how to use a library, a card catalog, and calling people who know things for information. Again, maybe just me.

[heartofslash.livejournal.com]

My daughter relies on electronic resources a bit too much for my taste - but then, she's not majoring in English Language and Literature like her old lady. She needs those online electronic journal articles, all up to date and less expensive for the university than paper copies. But I took her to the reference library for her first research paper back in high school, so she's fine. Also, I trained her to use the closest resources at hand - my books. (We LOVE looking shit up in my 1926 Collier's Encyclopaedia.)

I like the idea of kids graduating to the internet at 16... but the, the only computer games my kids got until they were older were educational - Math Rabbit and the like. But when the son got Star Trek Starship Creator. And Civilization. I think there was a Klingon game as well. (We have a Playstation/Xbox free household.) I'm proud to say they both raid my bookshelves for novels regularly, the daughter more than the son. He and his gf are hooked on DVDs - nature documentaries mostly. So cute.

[captsparrow4evr.livejournal.com]

I remember as a kid that the teacher would often assign us a specific number of resources to use (for ex. one source per page for a 5 page report or 3 sources for a 500 word essay.) She/he would also often say "Don't use the encyclopedia" or "Use primary sources." I see it as a larger problem that started years ago. When I was in college, I found I loved doing research but it shocked me that many of my peers found it annoying. College and high school students now can buy papers from a huge industry and there seem to be no consequences. To me, it's not a big surprise considering how many people sit back and accept everything Faux News feeds them without question.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Do you know, authors who write actual books about factual events and make the effort to base everything on first-sources and paper research impress me, because just for doing even shallow articles in my career, I have had to do tons of research just to know basically what I'm writing about? This made me remember college - I was a Lit major, so it was nothing to have a research paper or more due every week, or perhaps an essay on something you had to read and criticize. Again, pre-Internet. It was standard procedure for me to have several books checked out of the library at any given time. Honestly, it's a good thing the Internet wasn't around then or I wouldn't have gotten much work done - LOL.