People use Yahoo's search engine?

[randomness]

Best comment on this story: "It almost makes sense that people stupid enough to use yahoo as a search engine are also stupid enough to not know who Osama was."

Comments

[jtdiii.livejournal.com]

I will hope that is simply the way that people asked for background information about him... I will alas likely be wrong.

[spatch]

Well, at least they're asking. With any luck they'll get decent answers.

[muffyjo]

It's reasonable to believe that teenagers today were only 3-9 years old when the twin towers went down and probably have not focused on it as it didn't bear relevancy to their world. I'd like to think their attempts to engage with the information now would be a good sign.

I expect there to be a lot of papers being generated in classrooms around the world on Osama Bin Lauden.

[gee-tar.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was my take. With the Facebook status updates asking the question being an attempt at snarky humor.

[bloodstones.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I just put 'who is' into google and 'who is osama' is the fourth auto-complete. I'm not sure if I find it comforting or disturbing that it beat out 'who is in pretty little liars' which came in fifth.

[infinitehotel.livejournal.com]

Seems stupid, but given the age group I'm not entirely surprised. For context, I managed get through my senior year at one of Massachusetts better high schools without ever learning a single detail about the Vietnam War. Still too much of a hot button, nobody wanted to touch it. Even for the US History AP exam, the teacher brought us up to the Industrial Revolution or so and then said "Okay, do chapters 19-30 on your own." Osama was probably in there somewhere. :)

[st-rev.livejournal.com]

This raises the question: Is it possible that children are learning about 9/11 but not about the people and organizations behind 9/11? And if so, is it any wonder that many Americans now make blanket condemnations of Islam subscribe to conspiracy theories about the government instead of placing the blame for terrorism where it lies—with fringe rogues like bin Laden?

[frotz.livejournal.com]

This was my reaction too. I'm happy about the people who go looking for context! It's the people who never ask questions that I worry about.

[sarakate.livejournal.com]

Not only may not have focused on it, but may have been actively shielded from it by their parents. My son was 4 on 9/11, and I deemed him too young to be exposed to the news coverage -- I didn't watch it at all while he was awake in the house (which, frankly, made for a nice period of respite for myself). We've talked about it since in general terms, and he's watched some of the contemporary coverage via YouTube, as well as the anniversary coverage, in the last couple of years, but he's got kind of an overview level of understanding, not a deep engagement with it. And he'll have to be counted among the teenagers who didn't know who OBL was, because when I mentioned it in the car on the way to school Monday morning, he said, "Who?" and only the fact that I was driving kept me from facepalming. But then when I said, "Uh. Leader of Al Qaeda?" he said, "Oh yeah, that guy," and asked where they found him, so all is not lost.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

this is an intriguing concept.