To think people are getting noticeably stupider

[CurdinHenry]

At every level of capability it just feels like the species is in decline

I go with the Countdown rule, a single syllable word, eg daft, can form the comparative by adding er, dafter, but a word of more than one syllable, eg stupid, cannot just take er, it should be more stupid. I know others disagree but my ears prefer more stupid than stupider.

I think I read that average IQ rose by about 3 points per decade in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but has been in decline since WW2, at a rate of 2 points per generation. There are all sorts of reasons for both, including industrialisation and the increased access to education causing the rise, while improved medicine enabling children with birth defects to survive may have contributed to the decline. However, this is not quite what I think you are getting at, as the survival of vulnerable children is a good thing. I suspect you mean a decline in common sense.

Yes, parents. Of course. I am currently reading bloody chapters and chapters of various books to my kids (both also read to themselves), in an effort to keep that interest in decent books alive and burning. It's a monumental effort, tbh! After work, late capitalism's heavy toll, and general parenting, I can see how cultivating kids' minds could go by the wayside for parents with fewer resources than me. I succumb to screen-time pressure myself (hate it), but it's clear that screens are frequently the only palatable option for broken mams and dads with nothing left in the tank.
I am also hyper aware of my own brain's decline since social media started zapping my time so efficiently. I know it has addled me because I know what it is to have the brain of a regular, serious reader, having had one for the first 35 years of my life. If you never had this, how would you know you had brain rot? That's a major concern.

To be fair, I only know blotting paper (mid-40s) because of the weird sheet of it that used to be in the front of fancy writing paper I used as a kid to write thank you letters for birthday presents. I've never had to use it, even with using a fountain pen at school because they just didn't blot. I think it's one of those those things that younger people won't know, not necessarily because of intelligence, but just because it's pretty obsolete and hasn't been commonly used for a good few decades.

🎯

Isn’t it because stupid people have more kids than intelligent people. I’m sure I read that somewhere.

@Abitlosttoday
My ability to read books started to wane about 10 years ago - I presumed it was reaching the start of menopause. Now am wondering if it's being online?! You make an interesting point. I miss books, was once an avid reader.

Fair dinkum but was only really using this as a recent example of how general knowledge ,I think, is at an all time low.

They want to appear a certain way (ie convey this sentiment in this tone) seemingly unaware it just sounds like a robot wrote it then!

Measured by whom and how?

Haven’t heard ‘fair dinkum’ since I lived in Australia in the 80s!

Clever people are still being made. We still have people training to be doctors, lawyers, architects etc. But the world's population grows ever larger, so obviously there are going to be more stupid people born. The share of stupid to clever might remain the same, but the absolute numbers will be higher. And the numbers of stupid people have always way outstripped clever people. So yes, in a way you're right. With the way that population growth works, and the distribution of intelligence (i.e. more stupid people born than clever), there have, quite literally, never been as many stupid people in the world as there are now.

Add to that, the internet and social media is almost certainly replacing reading books to some degree, maybe a large degree, and this is a significant factor in levels of stupid. If people don't read, or read as much, they are not exposed to complex ideas that are clearly written and properly spelt.

Younger children are not supervised after school as much due to the out-of-control costs of living and housing meaning that both parents need to work full-time. So there's less reading and studying after school, probably.

There's no reason for it to be menopause! Jesus, it takes a lot, but not that! I had my first child ten years ago, and I was already a keen social media user, as well as a regular reader. I found it easier to maintain the social media because you can do it in 2 minute chunks while caring for a kid. My reading really lessened, but never stopped entirely. Now (a few years ago, really), I realise I read a LOT less than I once did, and can't blame my kids. I am making a deliberate effort to go back to my old ways and my attention span is building like a muscle. Would recommend! Put down the phone (she says with a phone between her thumbs...) Reading is also a much better activity for calmness of mind.

I can top that, when Wes Streeting was health secretary I mentioned one of his policy annoucements to the pharmacy assistant when I was picking up my prescription to which she responded "who's Wes Streeting?" I think that many people have little interest in anything that is not an immediate part of their life

I will try your method of just keep reading and retrain, did love a novel!
Menopause does cause brain fog, I know this, it's happening now ;-)
Lack of sleep and hormones I guess.

There's a great book entitled "The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains" by Nicholas G, Carr.

Title is fairly self-explanatory. It's basically about what a PP said, that the internet is interfering with our brains' abilities to process complex information and our ability to read actual books, due to its interference with our attention spans.

Surely you mean since you watched Neighbours in the early 90's! Don't tell me you never saw Joe Mangle..

Grammar and spelling is dire in the under 30s. All started when some schools decided spelling isn’t important - it’s the content of what’s written that should be focused on, ie creativity. So now we have the younger generations amongst us constantly using ‘of’ instead of have, don’t use paragraphs or full stops, and don’t get me started on there, they and their.

Yes, it does cause brain fog. 100%. However, that's more an issue with recalling info, rather than taking it in. Reading may help your mind stay clearer when not reading. Sharper.

To be fair there has been a disastrous churn of shit MPs.. it's a new person again..

Seems to have a new subtitle: "The Shallows: How the Internet is Changing the Way We Think, Read, and Remember."

The Shallows

This. Outsourcing thinking to a bunch of code has already dropped many IQs on this site and in the wider world - God help kids who are growing up to think this is normal.

The saddest part is that ai addicts don't see it, and consider themselves cutting edge. The truth is anybody at all can use ai, whether generative, ML, NLP etc, and many of us properly appreciate the cost to benefit ratio, and are avoiding it on purpose.

I admit I use it for web searches now in place of Chrome, Brave, Firefox etc because they're so heavily promoted, all the results you want are hidden on the second page, if there at all. But that's just a matter of clicking ai search at the top of the page where I've typed "Nature reservers within 20 kilometres of..."

Asking code to write a text, let alone an email for me is completely unnecessary and absolutely ludicrous.

I know about blotting paper the way I know why teachers are all called Miss or about life in public schools - I read unrelated books that referenced schools in various incarnations and then I could read or ask more specifically.

Now if the internet doesn't feed you anything about blotting paper/schools/history you might never hear about them.

That sounds rather a dumb blanket statement to blame "the internet".

Yes!! The shit I consume online definitely impacts my ability to process decent stuff from good books. So grateful to be aware of this though. I tell people all the time but some never had the reading head, so they don't know, or notice. Also, although I like an audio book, I don't think they help your mind truly absorb info like written text in a book does.