Welcome to the dumbing down of society. If it's not on their cell phone, it doesn't matter. We don't have to worry about physically talking anymore, as we can just thumb some partial words and/or symbols to communicate. We're headed back towards the time when there was no recorded language, more like painting on a cave wall to tell a story. You want to really screw with someone of the younger generation? Take away their phone, it's like taking the drugs away from an addict.
We tried doing this at work. You know, work, where you are paid to do a job, not talk and type on your cell phone. It was like we were infringing on their rights. How can you do your job, waiting on customers, when you have to finish texting away or reading such before you even acknowledge the customer standing in front of you? Stock the shelves? Are you kidding me? How can you stock shelves when both hands and your head are concentrating on your phone?
Tell them the phone is to be only in case of an emergency, and it seems to them every tweet or face book post is an emergency. It's like the phone is now part of their body, and you cannot separate the two. Heaven help you if you need to use the bathroom, as more often then not you find one of them hiding in there, so they can use their phone.
Try and make them do something that involves thinking and they are lost. I've had kids who even if the cash register told them the correct change they couldn't figure out what coins amounted to what.
As for education, I pity the teachers. Kids come in to apply for jobs all the time, normally "in the good old days" you dressed up to impress. It's 180 degrees difference now. I've had kids show up in stuff Goodwill wouldn't take, yet they have a $600.00+ phone in their hand. Have them fill out an application, and you'll see at best they phonetically spell. They have no clue as to punctuation or grammar. With this they want to work their hours not ours, and they want at least $15.00 an hour to start.
It's so bad if it isn't on their phone they are clueless on how to do something. I had one of them show me a video the other day on how a 3 cheese pizza is made. No, not making the dough, sauce and such, this was taking 3 different kinds of cheese (already prepared in separate bowls) and dumping them into one bowl and mixing them together. That was the video, taking three bowls and mixing them together in one bowl. That's how a 3 cheese pizza is made...