Chris Lott takes issue with those who dismiss netgen learners: “I suspect that we will see, in retrospect, that there are biological and neurological changes occurring due to technological changes, but it’s not really important. The remonstrations about the evidence remind me of scientists concluding that bumblebees can’t fly and philosophers concluding that there is no physical reality. Like Berkeley, I refute you thus, with the students I teach every term…”
He then adds an additional (and quite interesting) metaphor of eating to support his case: “People eat very differently in times of abundance than scarcity. Their biology doesn’t significantly change (though it does some), but it would be foolish to look around and argue that people aren’t really eating differently, it’s just a change in their food context. It would be wiser to recognize that the socioeconomic context is an important factor to consider when it comes to nutrition and try to teach proper eating habits in an environment that is not just no longer one of hunting and gathering, but one that is very different for most of us from even 50 years ago.”