Do kids spend too much time on the internet rather then reading a classic book? In Mark Bauerteins book “Dumbest Generation” he claims that kids are spending several hours online chatting with friends, playing games, and watching you tube videos rather then reading a good book, which is dumbing down our generation. While kids do spend hours and hours on the computer not learning anything and forgetting their homework, there are kids out there like me and my friends who spend less than 3 hours a week on the computer and most of our day reading and doing homework.

First of all, Mark is correct in his assumptions that kids do in fact spend a lot of time on the computer. “1,178 children in the US are child gamers who are pathologically or clinically “addicted to video games” the average child 8 to 12 years old plays 13 hours of video games per week. While teenagers 13 to 18 years old play 14 hours of video games per week.” (www.google.com, interesting statistics about video game, www.dyifather.com.)
Research does show that kids are spending an excessive amount of time on the computer, “it’s causing kids to be tired at school and skipping out on homework which is making their grades drop.” (www.google.com, teacheratrisk.com). Computer time is also making kids have less family time, and not to mention the computer can be very dangerous with all the predators out there.

However, Mark does not acknowledge that there are kids out there who in fact do read a lot rather then be on the computer. Research shows that kids spend 4 hours a day reading even if it is just homework, “I interviewed three students at Hellgate High School to see what there daily routine after school is. 2 students spend at least 2-3 hours a day on the computer and at least 45 minutes to 4 hours a week reading, except for one student who spends only 1 hour night on the computer and 2 hours a night reading including homework. But all the students had one thing in common which was that 60% of their homework had to be done to read something on paper or Internet and they always get in done before games or my spacing” (Mace Maygin, Gordon Quin, and York Caitlynn)

Yes, kids do spend an excessive amount of their time on the computer playing silly games, chatting, and watching you tube videos. They spend at least 13 hours per week on the internet, but kids are also using the computer do productive activities. All in all I do not believe this generation will be the “dumbest”, because I think technology will only increase people’s intelligence. Further research also shows that not all kids are addicted to the computer and would much rather love to read a good book.