I do believe that we are at another sea change in human psychology and that media may be driving it. The last such change occurred with the invention of the printing press and the wide availability of the written word. Schools formed, facts could be recorded and stored reliably.  History was no longer transferred through the subjective medium of the spoken word.  The book became the dominant medium for 400 years. The process of decoding letters arranged on a page trained the left side of the brain to order and index. Where the right side (input and storage) of the brain functions on arrival, the left (output and grammar) takes as long as 12 years to develop. As education evolved into a literature driven methodology, historically Western psychology took on a linear form. This is manifest in the way that we inherently value and index hierarchically; we categorize and note based on differentiation.
Since the 1970’s the dominant media is streaming video; we are bombarded with images which the right side of our brain delights in. The left however is without a classic training regimen.  It is difficult to make value decisions, i.e. TV is not good, books are better.  But we do need to consider the outcomes of this.  Used effectively, video seems to be a very efficient way to transmit a lot of information and it seems to “stick”.   On the positive side, anecdotally, my son has forgotten more about dinosaurs than I ever knew.  He has learned a great deal from Animal Planet and The Learning Channel.    His ADD was manifest in his inability to convey his thoughts through the written word; i.e. grammatically organized outputs.  On one hand, I get frustrated when I see my daughter spending time learning cursive writing.  On the other, she is very bright and I am not sure of a better way to “train” the left side of the brain.  What good is all of the information that we take in, if we are not able to organize it as cogent outputs?
I also think that we need to consider whether the classic testing methods aren’t providing flawed outcomes.  Is the ability to multi-task, or to not be “distracted” while engaged with several media sources concurrently, an anomaly or an adaptive advantage?  Is the classic, literature driven educational methodology out of step or needed now more than ever to prepare our brains to organize the onslaught if images and information that is growing unabated every day?  Western educational systems continue to struggle with this emerging change in psychology, until we sort it out we should examine whether we change the students, or change the methods.