That depends on who you ask. Some believe those born between the mid-1980’s and 2000 suffer from digital overload, making them dumber while others believe this generation has intellectual skills and assets made available through education technology solutions that prior generations did not have, in turn making them the smartest yet.

These points were debated at a September 29th luncheon hosted by the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C. Emory University English professor Mark Bauerlein argued that obsession with social networking and video games among students has led them to abandon leisure reading in large numbers. To bolster his claim, statistics from college-admissions tests and other sources were shown as evidence of an intellectual decline.

Bauerlein asserts that the relatively short high school and college years are individuals precious chance to build the foundation of their intellectual lives and careers through acquiring the conceptual skills and background knowledge to build upon.

To counter this argument, historian, economist and demographer Neil Howe explained how youngsters leisure pursuits today are more sophisticated than their elders. For example, the show Gunsmoke was a one plot show while today’s Law & Order is a multilayered drama.

Howe also cited statistics that today’s teens are reversing the trend when it comes to self destructive behaviors such as drug use and teen pregnancy. Also, kids today engage in much more elaborate activities at school than their parents did such as building robots, writing software programs and entering science fairs.

Both scholars agree that millennial are showing positive trends such as reduced violence and greater professional ambitions. Access to education technology has led to a higher availability of cultural and historical resources, thanks to the Internet and more libraries and museums which both scholars point to as a positive development.

In the end, Howe asserts that the millennial generation gets a bad rap, especially by those like Bauerlein who are using a baby boomer yardstick to measure their progress. Generations have characteristics reflective of their times, thus acting as a corrective force to their parents much like the boomers did with theirs according to Howe.