Mark Bauerlein, who wrote "The Dumbest Generation," was on our campus this week discussing what he sees as "the rapid decline of intellectual pursuits among the younger generation," and the potential harm this could cause as this group takes the place of the baby boomers.

In his book, he wrote that the Internet, "with its wealth of unlimited knowledge, has ended up being used mainly as a tool to extend cafeteria conversations among young people, making them experts on themselves and each other-and that's it."

Being one of those baby boomers he refers to, I am always interested in learning about a variety of viewpoints, but I am equally troubled by ones that carry absolute guarantees. I am referring to the "greatest," the "worse," the "earliest", or in this case, "the dumbest."

In many respects I disagree wholeheartedly with Professor Bauerlein regarding the Internet and how young people use it. While he is correct that the World Wide Web can be used to extend minimal knowledge by utilizing limited sound bites, it at least provides a starting point for information. And for many of us - young or old - a starting point may be all the inspiration we need to suddenly delve into a topic we knew nothing about.

Personally, I wish the Internet and this "cafeteria conversation" mechanism was available to my wife and me when we lived on Martha's Vineyard back in the 1980s. You see my wife, Kate, served for two years as a private duty nurse to playwright and author Lillian Hellman. Since Miss Hellman befriended us - we were never sure why - many times we would get last minute invites to have dinner with her and some "friends."

Oh, how I would have prayed for a Blackberry on which I could have quickly Googled John Hersey or Art Buchwald when I met them for the first time. It was one of those situations where I knew the name, but didn't have enough confidence in my knowledge to ask a question or participate in a conversation beyond the most peripheral of terms. How I wish I had that Internet access, no matter how shallow, so I could have had memories full of information I garnered from those evenings rather than regrets from what I should have asked.

Don't forget, many of us baby boomers were taught the Twain philosophy, "it is better to be silent and thought of a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."

So, in my 20's, I couldn't lean over and ask a James "Scotty" Reston-type at the dinner table, "so what do you do for a living?"

"Oh, thanks for asking John. I am a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the editor of The New York Times."

Are we really talking about the dumbest generation or just one that has far more advantages due to their ability to access all kinds of information and quickly?

Maybe this generation does not retrieve information to the level we always prefer, but that certainly doesn't equate to anything resembling dumb, only fortunate.