Why is it that most people who are book smart have no common sense?

Answer 1

Mostly a lack of experience. We call them "educated idiots". Hopefully with some solid experience behind them they'll balance out.

Answer 2

Most people who are book smart do not socialize very much their heads are crammed into books and lack the ability to open themselves up to the rest of the worls most book smart people i know have also lacked in street smarts and not knowing what goes on in street life they have no idea what some would consider minor thinking when dealing with street life so i think that's why book smrt people dont have common sense

Answer 3

Everyone acts like it's just about reading books.My sister is like that,and she doesn't read books when she doesn't have to.She went to college for a long time and did really well,is all.She only read when she was studying.She's too lazy too read.It's more of an ego thing,with her,I think.She thinks she's so smart so she doesn't actually pay attention.This is not a girl I'm talking about.She's 42.I think part of it is ego,and part of it is just a matter of only being able to absorb things one way.I have more common sense than she does,but I do not think I would do well in college.However,I don't feel I have to go for several years getting degrees I won't use,because I have nothing to prove to anyone.I live for happiness,not pats on the back.

Answer 4

It is a stereotypical ideology but hypothetically:

People who have book smarts spend more time in the pursuit of enlightenment through books and other scholarly endeavored instead of socializing.

Where as

People who have street smarts are educated socially by their experiences in everyday life.

Therefore lack of contact with people socially in everyday situations and it's apparent rules of how you are suppose to act would lead to the lack of common sense.

However it's all bull because I know a couple of underachievers that don't know their right from their left and some well educated people who travel and have the most outrageous adventures living life by a whim! It's more perspective!

Answer 5

people who are book smart learn by memorizing and recognizing facts. In a book, information is obvious, it is the application of that information that takes thought and requires problem solving. People who have more common sense learn by observing the environment, which is less obvious than words on a page, and use different senses to problem solve.

Answer 6

My husband said that most of the engineers where he works are very brilliant university trained people but he has noticed a lot have no hands on common sense.
Just too much with their heads in books I suppose and no practical experience in the real world where it counts.

Answer 7

It might help if you defined "book smart" and "common sense."

Technically, any information that someone has could fill a book. Therefore, all information is book information. Common sense is hardly common, as it's a matter of technological and sociological factors.

What's common sense to you might be foreign to others.

Answer 8

The mind is like a sandbox. We are all born with the same number of braincells (amount of sand) and have a limited amount of time to shape it. You can spread all the sand out nice and evenly, dig trenches in it (areas you know nothing about because you ignore certain subjects), pile the sand in select piles (things you have specific interest in), or pile in all in one tall tower (in which most of the sandbox is empty). One who is book smart piles their sand in understand academics and other things in books. It diverts time from developing skills like how to fix the plumbing or repairing the roof. No one has infinite time to learn everything. The beauty of all of this is that different people have different interest "callings". That means it takes everyone to make the world go around. Everyone is valuable. The sandbox theory of the mind also points out some of the risks in how we expend our mental energies. Some people are brilliant in one area, but in an adjacent area completely ignorant because they have dug a trench. Primadonnas are the ones who pile it all into on skinny tower and make the misktaken assumption that because they are exceptionaly brilliant in one area that their brillance extends over the rest of the now vacant sandbox! The final warning is that sometimes we let the cat (drugs) into the sandbox! Well, we all know what that means!

Answer 9

I think if you spend too much time with your head in a book you really seperate yourself from the common world and then forget what its like to just try getting your pants on in the morning. We all need a good balance of both types of information, my mom gave me common sense and my teachers the book stuff to a degree, then i just kept reading and watching information television as i got older.

Answer 10

Because books give you time to think on how you would react to a situation. Common sense is required right then and there. Often books give perfect situations and appeal to your imagination. Real life situations are about common sense.

Answer 11

It's something that people who aren't smart choose to believe to make themselves feel better.

The truth is that intelligence is positively correlated with virtually all social outcomes--except happiness, which is independent of intelligence! This includes job AND relationship issues, both, which are considered "common sense" areas.

There is also the fact that smarter people have distinctly different interests and preoccupations in their converastions. Eleanor Roosevelt said that "great minds talk about ideas; average minds talk about events; and small minds talk about people." People interested only in talking about people--who find that "practical"--would have a hard time understanding how a smart person's discussions of abstractions relates to the world. Also, such people would bore and intelligent person, who would have no interest in talking to them and would be falsely labeled as shy or awkward when in reality he simply has no desire to interact with you.