A generation of dimwits? I don’t think so!

I can almost hear the disgruntled groans of bloggers and columnists tear through the screen as I read posts on the decline of creativity in today’s youngsters. This particular Newsweek piece on the “creativity crisis” in America received a lot of buzz.

The cause of this intellectual decay? Many have been blamed – ranging from “mindless TV watching” to texting to social networking.  Then there are plenty of others decrying the apparent degradation of our brains (especially in kids and teens) due to the very existence of the Internet. The problem I have with this alarmist tone is it seems to be based on a series of false assumptions.

The Newsweek piece is based on a lot of research, but fails to put that research in the right frame of reference. Sure, some of the issues cited are very real, but it fails to get to the real problem. In order to get the right answers, we must ask the right questions.

So, WTF is creativity, really?
Creativity seems to be an intangible ghost of a word that everyone from CEOs to movie directors use and abuse a lot. It is very subjective. Well-executed research about creativity starts by defining it clearly – and needless to say, this definition varies. We could always go with the simplest definition: “Creativity is the ability to generate ideas.”

How would we measure creativity?
In the same way IQ scores are used as a way to measure intelligence, there exists a “Creativity Quotient.” In the 1960s, E. Paul Torrance created a series of tests to measure the CQ of kids. These are still used by academics and form the basis of the arguments made by the Newsweek article. These involve simple tests of certain types of thinking and problem-solving skills.

But is a test enough to draw our conclusions about the creativity of a generation? The problem is, the textbook definition of creativity might be the same today as it was in 1960, but what it means to us today has changed. Does the availability of ubiquitous information affect the way we use our creativity? You bet. Do the problems of the real world expect us to use our creativity  in different ways than we did back in the 1960s? I think so. Shouldn’t we consider the way the world has changed and our current use of creativity when we draw conclusions from these tests?

Making a LOLcat might seem frivolous, but is a creative act nevertheless

Can we redefine creativity and stuff it to these old fogies?
The very act of creation has morphed over time – it’s not just about writing a story or indulging in the arts – it’s commenting on Facebook, tweeting, making a YouTube video and of course, creating a LOLcat. The barriers to experimenting with new media have been broken for our generation and this is letting us explore facets of our creativity that we didn’t even know existed.

The creative act is often thought of as an individual one. It is rarely so in the real world – every aha! moment is preceded by conversations, inspirations and other events that happen in a more social environment. The prominence of social creativity has never been more than today. A lot of people would agree that on the list of favorite-buzzwords-of-CEOs-in-2010 “collaboration” is one of the top ones – and for good reason.

I think our generation is getting really good at being creative, together. This has multiple implications – from the workplace to the school, crowdsourcing is a great example of this. The platforms of today are nurturing social creativity, and it is spurring novel initiatives such as the recent launch of OpenIDEO – a place where people design better, together for social good.

What do we do now?
I think the research going on with creativity is extremely valuable to us. But we must be careful how we interpret these results and see to it that we ask the right questions. And most importantly, educators need to acknowledge that the new social and media landscape we live in carries its own challenges. And if we want kids to do well navigating their way through these complex systems, we need to prepare them accordingly. The multiple articles published about this topic discuss very important issues. I just wish we would question our assumptions and check the framework we are making those assumptions in before declaring an entire generation dim.

Photo by cayusa