The Dumbest Generation?

I just finished a book today entitled The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future. As you can imagine, this was for class. I reacted to it in a very mixed way. The author uses great numbers of knowledge tests to assert that youth today have less knowledge than ever before, due in part to lack of reading, internet and television use, education pedagogy that focuses on "self-centered" knowledge rather than traditional knowledge, and other things. Knowledge seemed to be defined, per these tests, as basic rote memorization: who is the Speaker of the House, for example, identify this or that. Is this the best way to define knowledge? (His argument is that without these building blocks, you can't get to the in depth thought of true knowledge.)

So, what do you think, internets? Are we in BIG TROUBLE because the internet is making us dumber?