Idiocracy, here we come.
Millennial here. The only thing surprising about a downward trend is that it didn’t start with Gen X and get progressively worse, to include us, with each generation.
As time goes, our planet gets closer to cooking us alive, Nazis are fucking surging in popularity, and the economy spirals further out of control… Yeah, that’s gonna have a not-so-great impact on our brain.
Looking at gen Z specifically, between COVID and AI slop, we kinda just destroyed like half of their education, so if they’re performing poorly on some academic metric: YEAH NO SHIT.
Alpha is even more fucked… But not as fucked as then gen after them!
Covid was forced on them. AI slop wasn’t. Each generation has its share of shit they were handed, and shut they could have easily avoided.
AI slop was absolutely forced on them. Even if they’re not personally balls-deep into ChatGPT or some shit, they’re still stuck navigating an enshittified internet that’s gone from bad to shitstorm in just a few years almost entirely due to AI.
It’d be frustrating as all hell to try to write a research paper or piece together a presentation using today’s internet.
It wasn’t. But to do you.
…um… would you mind pointing me to the other internet that wasn’t soiled by AI that genZ is using to dodge all the AI slop that would otherwise be forced on them? I’d very much like to use it.
No one forced Gen Z to use the trash to validate themselves with it. No one forced them to use it to do their thinking for them. We all use the same internet. Yet it seems only Z got dumber from it.
Imagine that.
15 years ago if you started talking about intelligence in a scientific context, it feels like people would jump all over you. Now I notice it seems to be far more accepted. What changed?
Drop in intelligence made people trust IQ scores were more than the garbage science they are. 😔
Spend enough time talking about something, and people will start to consider a serious topic worth discussing.
As a Gen X whose brain cells were supposedly fried in childhood breathing tons of leaded gas, I look upon my Gen Z offspring and have to say, a drop in intelligence is not at the top of my list of concerns for that generation. They seem a generally dispirited bunch. So much depression, anxiety, and isolation, coupled with bleak future prospects. I just want to give them all a hug, honestly.
Fun fact: Depression affects many things. Attention span, reaction time, engagement, memory, higher reasoning, spatial awareness… All things that (tangentially or directly) affect perceived intelligence.
Pretty damn good chance that we’re all sad because we know damn well just how fucked the world is, and we burned out before we ever got a chance to try.
… that said, I’ll totally take that hug. Hugs are great. 🫂
And yet, intelligent people are also far more likely to be depressed. Imagine how smart all those sad smart people would be if they weren’t sad about the state of the world all the time!
Yep, we got shit thrown at us, and in some ways it built good traits in us. But there was still some hope along with the fears in our time. I don’t think we passed much of that down.
Same. However, it doesn’t make this any less true. And things aren’t boding well for Gen Alpha.
underfunded education, extremely bleak prospects for the future that lead to mass anxiety and depression (which is bad for your brain, shockingly), and having your formative years during a pandemic whose long-term effects include cognitive impairment will do that to you, yea
LMAO… loving the excuses.
it’s not excuses, just (informed) theories about material conditions that could lead to this
what’s your explanation for this? genuinely curious
i’m kinda doubtful that the blanket “technology = bad” thesis in the article is true, honestly. i’m obviously not a neuroscientist but it seems super reductive and simplistic to me, and altho i believe that yes reliance on short-form content and ai summaries isn’t good for your attention span, that’s 1. not the same thing as intelligence and 2. faaaaar from being exclusive to gen z (or gen alpha for that matter). look at any older person with a phone and you’ll see it. my parents waste a ton of time on the glowing rectangle too and they treat the google summary like the gospel
Check the other comments. Someone posted links from better sources that cite the actual studies. You may not like the results, but that doesn’t make them less true.
Generational divides are a bullshit myth made to distract from the class divide
Yeah… only there’s evidence that suppers the claim. Man. Science is such a fucking burden. Isn’t it?
Sorry to be so direct - this is a frankly terrible article.
The paraphrased sections are not directly cited, the quotations are extremely brief and general, and sources either are not given or only the general publication (without specifics) are given, no numbers or comparators are given. The site layout appears intentionally messy to make it harder to avoid ad or ad-placed articles. Overall this seems to be content as a pretext for ads.
For anyone clicking through because they would like to read something more thought-out, here’s an article I found by googling the name of the person quoted, which gives more details: https://fortune.com/article/how-did-us-spending-30-billion-dollars-on-laptops-result-in-first-generation-less-cognitively-capable-than-parents/
This also is low on numbers, but here’s a link to Horvath’s testimony which appears to include comparator charts: https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/A19DF2E8-3C69-4193-A676-430CF0C83DC2
I don’t think it’s meant to be an academic write up- just a basic idea of the study and results. Though your links do cover it much better.
I have an ad blocker so I see no ads on mine.
I support people posting content, so no worries. I guess if anything, I just want to help people who were frustrated like I was find better content. I don’t mean for it to make you feel bad, keep posting, but the more you can share something that helps the reader, the better for everyone.
Oh absolutely! I do t feel bad at all, and I appreciate the lift! We need to see more of this here.
It’s K shaped though, no? The death of the Flynn effect is largely because those who have access to parental resources and proactive education are overtaking people who don’t have those luxuries.
There are plenty of Gen Z who are well educated and have the capacity to understand the world more. However, the amount of people who are being left behind is probably growing as the educational and class divides are rising.
I don’t think this is to say they’re complete idiots. It’s just that as a collective, their averages are notably lower.
So you’re saying that I’m part of the smartest generation? I wish that would help me buy a house.
Not from your article but from one of the links someone else posted.
When students self-report classroom computer use, higher daily screen exposure consistently corresponds to lower scores in reading, mathematics, and science. The relationship is monotonic: more screen time, lower performance
So it’s not about the generation getting dumber as the headline would suggest, it’s screens rotting our brains. So it’s very likely that all generations intelligence has dropped.
The media did so well with putting the millennials against the boomers that they’re desperate for another version of the same fight. Their rich pay lords also probably won’t let them out a more honest headline which would be:
“it’s official: increased screen time reduces intelligence”
IQ is a shit index, that shouldn’t be taken seriously
Yes, as a means of measuring intelligence. What it was designed to do, and what it is used for in a clinical context, is to measure for impairment against your peers.
So…. You didn’t read the article, and it shows. Maybe it is on to something.
For reference:
Gen Z is the first group to score lower than the generation before them. Their attention span, memory, reading and math skills, problem-solving abilities, and overall IQ are lower than those of millennials.
All of these things are quantifiable.
The article does mention IQs being lower, though. It’s just not the only measure mentioned. I’m curious how the others were measured
I tried but nothing happened when I clicked “show full article.”
Yeah, well I think this thread has a very angry vibe and needs a picture of a cat!
Did… you read the comment? They made a simple statement. They didn’t go beyond that and made no other claims. You’re the one assuming, here.
For real. It’s a fine example of reading while being illiterate.
No that doesn’t make IQ a good measurement of intelligence. Volumes have been written on this and how it is more a measurement of one’s heritable environment. Source: I am a millennial with an above average IQ.
So… when used at a population level rather than at an individual level, and used for comparison between generations from the same place… they’re a good metric?
Good in what sense? Consider that people do better on an IQ test if you offer to pay them more based on their performance. One might conclude that Gen Z values the IQ test than prior generations, or it could be reflective of the environment having more food swamps.
And again…. They tested for more than just IQ. Read the article. Try and understand it.
Both things can be true: that IQ is not a good index to use in this context and that other measurements have shown cognitive decline.
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So, it’s a measurement of Gen Z’s heritable environment?
Or their apathy towards IQ tests.
So true, GenZ user! /s
This only applies in those shitty 1st world countries. If you move somewhere nice like Cambodia you get +5 smarter.
Whenever this is posted gen Z folks really don’t like it.
How are they even able to understand it? /s
They ask Grok how they should feel about it.
Sorry lets compress it down to a 30 second brainrot clip read in an AI voice.
I d never seen this article before. lol. Has this been posted here already?
And yeah…. I’d imagine they won’t be too thrilled.
Not this specific article but others like it.
Don’t they say this same shit about every generation?
And there’s always some “study” proving it. Proving that the last great, smart, cool, respectful generation was whichever one the author was from…
No. They don’t.
But they did?
Growing up all I heard was “wahh millenials, theyre so dumb because computer and calculators. Millennials aren’t as skilled as parents because soft and indoor office jobs. Millennials can’t fix/handyman things cuz lazy/consumerism”
Right. You heard people whining about dumb shit. This isn’t the same. This is a study done with factual results.
Yea, that’s what they said about their takes too…
W/e man, take the bait. Do the artificial generational division bs. Around and around we go. Its totally different this time… totally
For almost a century, the Flynn Effect was the standard. Yet, suddenly, it ended with Gen Z. This isn’t opinions bud. It’s science.
You just don’t like the outcome.
This is some intergenerational rage bait. Gen Z is just as smart and capable as any other generation. Human generations aren’t a hierarchy of ability and anyone who thinks they are better than a broad category of people is part of the problem. Racism and bigotry both stem from the same idea: some people are better than others and those people need to be discarded from society.
This article is pointless speculation by someone stirring up unwarranted sentiment.
Gen Z is just as smart and capable as any other generation.
The introduction of social media, with all the addiction, depression, anxiety, etc. associated with it has somehow managed to not affect peoples problem-solving skills? There are so many studies confirming how fucked the younger generations are regarding all kinds of mental health that it’s frankly absurd to believe those findings are completely independent of things like attention span and problem-solving skills.
Also:
- Article: Refers to an actual study.
- You: “This article is pointless speculation”.
Gen Z is just as smart and capable as any other generation
But they’re not. And there’s evidence to back it up.
