The unraveling of the modern mind
If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you
I wrote recently on infantilization in education. The unraveling of the modern mind was on my mind again this week as I saw images of two well-paid pharmaceutical lobbyists serving in the US Senate, confronting one of the most decent men in public life who is trying to make America healthy again.
It makes you wonder if we can have some type of mental health test to be permitted to serve in public office.
A few days ago, I spoke with an acquaintance who works in healthcare. Her primary job is seeing patients. Among her other responsibilities, she sometimes trains residents and other healthcare professionals working in the hospital where she works.
I told her about the students at my college. They are entitled to very flexible accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. This law broke down barriers to the physically handicapped, allowing them to get an education.
Regrettably, the law has also distorted beyond recognition the traditional educational process. Students for years have been entitled, with suitable documentation, to 50% extra time on tests. Next they were entitled to 100% extra time on tests.
This term, about 1 in 9 of my students have accommodations, a record high (and I expect it will go higher next academic year). They include 200% extra time on tests, and also one week extra time to turn in homework.
My homework assignments typically take an hour or so, and have a one-week deadline. You would think that a student could find an hour or two or three during a week, and still hand it in on time. In fact, the homework software shows me that these students often do not begin working on the homework until after everyone else has completed the assignment, doing the work in the following, supplementary week. So they are not even using the first week to get started. What is going on? You might suspect cheating, but more likely it is mere procrastination.
I am also getting multiple emails per day from the same student, panicked about some detail of the course. All those details were elaborated in repeated e-mails from me to the students. Mrs. Surak says: they don’t read anymore.
I shared all this with my healthcare acquaintance. I apologized for the students, saying that this was probably a consequence of the pandemic and the remote teaching we did at that time.
My friend said, not so. She has found that residents and other professionals with master’s degrees were unable to remember simple instructions and unable to focus on task, and that these problems began before the pandemic.
You may recall the Substack article I restacked on smartphones and social media. This phenomenon started in the mid-2010s and continues to this day. Waiting for Mrs. Surak in the lobby of a medical facility a few days ago, I saw a mother walk in with a 5-year-old child, perhaps, in tow. The child was engrossed in a movie on her very own smartphone.
No wonder a recent article described children’s inability to stack building blocks. The children literally are unable to place one block atop another. They try to swipe photographs in magazines.
We are at a dangerous point in world history. The majority of people in the world’s leading civilizations, all of them, are gradually losing their minds.
Are there solutions? Of course. Observing Sabbath is very important. For a 24-hour period each week (OK, I know some of you will say 25 hours!), there should be no computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, television, radio, or telephone. I would also add for good measure: no commercial activity, no job, no employment of others. Just decompress.
Throw in a daily technology break, between 9:00 PM and 7:00 AM. No. Use. At. All. The world will somehow survive without you being attached to social media, entertainment, and what laughingly passes for “news”.
Children should have limited total exposure to these technologies each day: no more than a certain number of hours. Youngsters should not have access to this technology at all while their brains are still forming.
Grandparents, find a tactful way to convey your concerns to your children. Maybe offer them an alternative. Insist on no technology use while the family are visiting you.
For those who observe, good Shabbos / Shabbat shalom.
Good Shabbos (I sin). Much of the problem, with youth and their parents, started when this country started leaning to the left, Clinton regime. It was a step in the global Marist cabal's plan to take down America. Very important to start training the children early. Take control from the parents, etc. Kids now are dependent on the "protection" by the schools and government. They are taught nothing about how to get along in society or take responsibility for their actions (or lack thereof). The kids know that there are no consequences for being non-functional. Their minds, their ambition have been taken away. Here, kid, glue this "smart phone" to your hands. Hopefully (it is still permitted to hope) we are entering a period where much of this harm will be undone.
Thank you, Surak. As a teacher of critical thinking I witness the effects of this dumbing down every day. Sometimes a student who has taken many of my courses (and loved them) says something that reveals her lack of understanding- of even basic concepts. She was merely stimulated/ entertained by my teaching style. I was her brain candy. Fyi, I teach on Zoom and am not affiliated with any institution.