Are we alone?

[Froge]

No, I'm referring more to the fact that lately, with the advancement of technology, not only do we as people need to constantly be informed all the time, but we are too lazy to go out of our way to do it. It's sluggish, pathetic behavior and I feel ashamed to call myself a human being these days. For that reason, I fear any civilization we make contact with at this current stage in our society will think us immature and pathetic. Sure, there are plenty of educated people amongst us, but I'm talking about the lowered standard for education in the general public here. It's a real deal-breaker.

Only from an American perspective. You're forgetting that the other 80-90% of the world, particularly third world countries, are working their asses off every day just to put food on their table (and half of them are still starving). Would any advanced alien civilization base their judgment of our world on a single country (if they can even understand what a country is)?

You're also assuming that aliens can even understand our concepts of immaturity. What if this alien race is a total hivemind who utterly worships their king / queen (would they have genders?) and finds our media's worship of pop idols to be similar, thus deciding to befriend us? What if this alien race believes that laziness is a good quality because they value hedonism? What if this alien race doesn't even know what education is, because they have one super intelligent hive lord who carries out all their mathematical, philosophical, and scientific advancements?