Editor, Times-Union: There was a time when it was not uncommon for people to expand their intellectual horizons, maybe just to keep from getting bored, or just for simple curiosity, however, Dr. Francis Spitznagel of the Pew Research Center says, “Nowadays those same people can just spend their time playing Farmville or uploading pictures of their kids to one of Google’s several dozen social networking sites.”
According to Dr. Spitznagel’s study “Half of U.S. Adults Will Be Obtuse by 2030,” Spitznagel goes on to say that “the number of obtuse people in the United States will increase from 99 million in 2008 to 164 million by 2030” Dr. Spitznagel further says, “Possibly more, depending on the relative acceleration of certain societal factors,” citing such factors as “the number of reality television shows on the air, the preponderance of comments sections on news websites, and whether a Tea Party candidate is elected president.”
Most important, Spitznagel gives the definition of obtuse as “lacking quickness of perception or intellect,” and he also believes that the Internet caters specifically to people with those qualities, noting the recent finding that more than 80 percent of the Internet is pictures of cats.
Spitznagel states that “It was not that long ago that it was relatively uncommon to come across an obtuse person,” however as Spitznagel goes on to say, “these days it’s not unusual for entire families and in some cases entire social groups, to be obtuse, often morbidly obtuse.”
Dr. Spitznagel’s study pointed to several possible causes of obtuseness in Americans, including a decline in education funding and Rush Limbaugh. But far and away the primary factor according to Spitznagel is “the rise of the Internet.”
“Plus, if there’s a topic you don’t understand or that is to in-depth to require multi-level thinking, you can just go into the comments section and call it retarded, along with the dozens of other obtuse people doing the same thing,” noted Spitznagel.
According to the study, other common descriptions that obtuse people apply to complex topics in their Internet comments include lame, epic, fail and f-ing stupid. “Especially that last one,” said Spitznagel.
Spitznagel believes that a greater intellectual curiosity and a need to pursue the finer details of complex societal issues will be the key to reversing what many see as a downward spiral in such important areas as the economy and the environment.
CAP News (Washington) reported that more than 2,000 Facebook commentors referred to the study as f-ing stupid.
