If you want proof that the US is no longer a credible world leader, you should look past the fact that most of its students think Europe is somewhere in the South Pacific and look at its technology buying habits.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, tablet ownership has jumped from about 1 out of every 10 Americans to approximately 19 percent. That means that two out of ten Americans were stupid enough to buy a keyboardless notebook even though they are broke and no one has found a use for them yet.

To be fair they were not all wasting their money on an Apple iPad they were buying cheaper tablets like the Kindle Fire and Barnes and Noble’s Nook Tablet. But most of the cash appeared to go to the Apple which sould 13 million iPads over the holiday season while Amazon sold between four to five million Kindle Fire tablets. In addition to tablet ownership increasing rapidly, e-book reader ownership also spiked from 18 percent in December 2011 to 29 percent in January 2012.