March 20th, 2007 Stewart
That said, here’s my first effort at using Gliffy to map out workflow on PubDrug. Any suggestions or ideas would be most welcome. I’ll be editing it considerably in the weeks to come.
Posted in gliffy, informatics, pubdrug | 2 Comments »
March 19th, 2007 Stewart
Study: Prescription drugs a problem on campus - CNN.com
Messrs. Howe & Strauss took quite a bit of umbrage with Twenge’s study on Millennials being narcissistic. One item in particular that they discuss is drug abuse rates:
Drug abuse too is a classic barometer of self-involved behavior. According to the highly regarded annual Monitoring the Future survey, cigarette and alcohol consumption in grades 8, 10 and 12 are now at their lowest levels since the survey began in 1975. The rate of illicit drug use is much lower for today’s kids than it was for their parents when they were in high school.
What they don’t mention is the sudden and dramatic increase in prescription drug abuse, not to mention the fact that one-half of all college age students routinely binge drink, this from the even-better-regarded National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.
Other elements of Howe & Strauss’s argument seem a little off-track as well. For example, they cite lower violent crime numbers as a sign of Millennial altruism, but completely ignore illegal media downloading, an activity that is largely driven by youth culture and the need for immediate gratification.
Part of the problem is that all young people tend to be pretty narcissistic, regardless of generation, and Howe & Strauss would do well to remember that.
Posted in drug abuse, millennials, statistics | No Comments »
March 9th, 2007 Stewart
I’ll be giving a Millennials talk at SUNY Fredonia in just a few hours and I’m pretty excited about it. My colleague and CIL co-founder Chris Hollister will be joining me, and it promises to be a special event.
What makes it special is that this is a conference on multimodal literacies, and that I’ll be addressing the concern of information literacy for the Millennial generation. My audience will be primarily English professors and librarians, and to have those two groups in the room while talking about information literacy can be a little daunting. But it’s also an exciting opportunity to launch a discussion among the parties best able to address information literacy concerns for their school.
I’m posting my slides here to be shared with the group (no handouts today) and this post can serve as a springboard for continuing our discussion. I’ll post more later today when I’m back from the event.
Posted in CIL, information literacy, millennials, writing | No Comments »
March 4th, 2007 Stewart
Fellow library blogger Jennimi and I have started up a little meme from our comments on my last post. We’re asking everyone to post with their response to the following question:
“What 5 things would you say to the next generation?”
She’s already posted hers which I like a lot; here’s mine:
* Education is a process, not an outcome. If you aren’t learning anything in college, odds are you are failing the system as much as (if not more than) it is failing you.
* Other people cannot tell you who you are. Self-discovery can really only happen when you unplug from the world.
* Do you really want your children to see those pictures of you doing body shots in Cabo? Because once they are out there, they are out there forever.
* The only people who have ever been accused of being great are the ones who had original ideas and built original things.
* Give something back every single day.
You can join in by tagging your post “5tothenext” and posting your five things. To get the ball rolling, I’m calling out:
(David, if you do this, I’ll finally post that “five things you don’t know about me” thing that I didn’t do before.) Thanks all!
Posted in 5tothenext, education, generation x, millennials | 4 Comments »
March 4th, 2007 Stewart
Self-Awareness Not a Problem at College - washingtonpost.com
While not really coming as much of a shock, it is noteworthy in how this research flies in the face of Howe & Strauss’s assertion that these kids were more altruistic than other generations. Meanwhile, Gen X’s Content of our Character Project has been collecting letters to the next generation that would hopefully appeal to their sense of social conscience.
EDIT: March 5, 10:45 AM — Howe & Strauss bite back. FWIW, I find that after a little while their relentless optimistic spin wears almost as thin as the generational bashing I find elsewhere. Truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
Posted in education, generation x, millennials | 5 Comments »