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IP: Well-Informed Citizens Increasingly Rare in Information Age

From: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2000 12:48:41 -0400

Monday, July 17, 2000

Well-Informed Citizens Increasingly Rare in Information Age

By Gary Chapman

Last month, the National Science Foundation released its report "Science
and Engineering Indicators 2000"
(<http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/seind00/>)
, which revealed some data about Americans' understanding of the world
that are strikingly at odds with the ubiquitous hype about our "Age of
Information."

"Most Americans," the report says, "know a little, but not a lot, about
science and technology." Given some of the findings, even that may be
generous.

While more than 70% of the people the NSF surveyed knew that the Earth
revolves around the sun and not the other way around, and that humans and
dinosaurs did not coexist, only 16% could define the Internet and only
13% could accurately describe a molecule. At least those numbers are
going up, the report's authors noted diplomatically -- five years ago,
only 11% could define the Internet and only 9% could describe a molecule.

"Science literacy in the United States [and in other countries] is fairly
low," says the report with typically measured understatement. Only about
a fifth of the Americans surveyed could describe what it means to study
something scientifically.

In a classification of the level of interest in science and technology
among Americans, the NSF study used a category labeled "the attentive
public," meaning people who "express a high level of interest in a
particular issue, feel well-informed about that issue, and read a
newspaper on a daily basis, read a weekly or monthly news magazine, or
read a magazine relevant to the issue." A mere 10% of Americans fit this
description, according to the report.

About 40% of the survey population reported being very interested in
science and technology, but only 17% thought they were personally
well-informed. About 30% thought they were poorly informed.

These discouraging data fit with other patterns in Americans' knowledge
about things, like current events. In 1997, researchers at the Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press in Washington said, "An
analysis of public attentiveness to more than 500 news stories over the
last 10 years confirms that the American public pays relatively little
attention to many of the serious news stories of the day."

Last month, the Pew Research Center reported that 84% of people surveyed
"are not paying a lot of attention to the Microsoft breakup," perhaps the
most important antitrust case of the last 80 years. Over 70% were unaware
that there is a federal budget surplus, and 56% had "no idea who Alan
Greenspan is." (Greenspan is chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.)

Ten years ago, Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center, said, "The
ultimate irony of [our] findings is that the Information Age [has]
spawned such an uninformed and uninvolved population." There doesn't
appear to be sufficient reason to change this assessment even five years
into the boom of the Internet.

Such surveys of American knowledge seem to paint a picture of us that is
reflected in many of our more popular political leaders: optimistic,
generally untroubled by the world's woes, but manifestly ill-informed. We
have tended to accept this because of our faith in native pragmatism and
common sense. But with the world getting increasingly complex,
technologized and competitive, such faith may verge on the delusional.

"After a steady series of breakthroughs in information technology," wrote
David Shenk in his 1997 book "Data Smog," "we are left with a citizenry
that is certainly no more interested or capable of supporting a healthy
representative democracy than it was 50 years ago, and may well be less
capable."

Improving education is the most common knee-jerk plan of action for
perceived deficits in American understanding and knowledge, especially in
math and science. No doubt there is vast room for improvement in U.S.
education. But as political philosopher Benjamin Barber of Rutgers
University has pointed out, young people tend to learn what society
teaches them to value.

The simple truth is that deep study of science, math, history,
literature, art or familiarity with current events cannot compete with
celebrity gossip and scandals, large calamities, TV and video games,
voyeurism, consumerism, instant fortunes, advertising and popular but
ephemeral fascinations.

University educators, like me, are constantly astonished at the depth and
breadth of students' knowledge about popular culture and consumer
products and by the weakness of their grasp on valuable and vital
subjects. They are learning, but not what we usually think of as
"learning." Too many are learning answers to the questions on the runaway
hit TV quiz show "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," instead of the answers
to life's most important questions.

Studies have shown that U.S. parents have much lower expectations of
their children and much higher opinions of their children's educational
achievements than parents in other countries. It's very common for
American parents to mistake their child's deep knowledge of some
idiosyncratic fixation for general educational competence.

This is perhaps the true ultimate irony of the Information Age: As
high-tech leaders persistently, almost desperately, call for more
educated workers, the "info-tainment" business that is rapidly absorbing
the Internet and all other media makes well-informed citizens even more
rare and unusual. The constant "dumbing-down" and vulgarization of the
culture industry, driven by mass marketing and profits, is clearly at
odds with educational excellence, but few high-tech leaders can bring
themselves to admit their role in this depressing decline.

Until we sever education from beeps, clicks, dancing cartoons, games,
celebrities, ads, trivia and marketing hype, the idea of living in an Age
of Information will continue to be something of a cruel joke.

Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the University of
Texas. He can be reached at >>Texas. He can be reached at gary.chapman () mail utexas edu.

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IP: Well-Informed Citizens Increasingly Rare in Information Age Dave Farber (Jul 17)