To think people are getting noticeably stupider

[CurdinHenry]

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

I used to work with American colleagues (at one of the largest companies in the US) and they just didn’t come across as educated, unlike the Europeans.

They appeared to completely lack any critical thinking ability. They spoke no foreign languages, apparently knew no history, hadn’t read classic literature and none of them knew anything about music or played an instrument.

When Ukraine was invaded they compared it to the civil war in Ethiopia - they didn’t seem to understand the concept of a sovereign power invading another sovereign power or that a civil war in Africa is strategically less important than an invasion of a European country that supplies a large amount of the world’s wheat.

But also - studies are showing declines around the world due to phone use. No one is reading books any more.

I've not RTFT, but has this been posted?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/homo-idioticus/202506/the-rise-of-homo-idioticus-are-we-getting-more-stupid

'IQ scores peaked among those born around 1975 and have been declining since. The average drop is about 7 points per generation.'

You are obvs not getting " stupider" ...that's when I was there too '85-'86 !

Perhaps we're primed to help too much; there are too many gadgets to think for us that we just follow blindly.

There're always some corkingly shit answers on quiz shows these days. I saw a Tenable episode recently with the subject '20th and 21st century playwrights' - the contestant answered: "I'm just going to say Shakespeare."

No, as I didn't actually reference specific studies, I'm afraid you can't make that blanket statement.

In summary, it's an accepted reality, indicated by lots of research, that the internet, social media, and constant digital notifications have conditioned the brain to seek rapid, novel stimulation, making sustained focus on a single task increasingly difficult.

We can retrain our brains as we do still have the fundamental biological capacity for attention. And there are even interactive educational technologies that can assist with this.

However, what is not under any debate at all is that habitual digital multitasking and algorithm driven feeds, plus information overload have significantly shortened the time we spend on a single screen or task and this shift is irrefutably linked to heightened cognitive fatigue and lower academic performance.

Anyway, here are a bunch of studies I pulled from an article I read fairly recently on the real and proven issue of shrinking attention spans.

https://elearningindustry.com/a-deep-dive-into-the-shrinking-attention-span https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7943608/ https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/cognition/articles/10.3389/fcogn.2023.1203077/full https://sites.psu.edu/abingtonsun/2023/11/17/technology-is-impacting-our-attention-span/ https://dailycollegian.com/2024/02/technology-is-the-culprit-for-shortened-attention-spans/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8598050/ https://www.foothillsacademy.org/community/articles/what-you-need-to-know https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3220824/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7366944/ https://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/news/2023-10-10/study-reveals-connection-between-adhd-behaviours-technology-addictions-adults https://www.newsweek.com/our-attention-spans-declining-technology-not-solely-blame-1787387 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7366947/ https://www.sambarecovery.com/rehab-blog/average-human-attention-span-statistics https://www.beboldrecovery.com/blog/average-human-attention-span-statistics-facts https://www.socialrecoverycenter.com/blog/average-human-attention-span-statistics-and-facts https://www.focusmonk.co/blog/the-impact-of-technology-on-attention-span-and-how-to-combat-it https://www.eschoolnews.com/digital-learning/2024/01/03/examples-of-technologies-that-improve-student-learning/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7466741/ https://blog.showme.com/2019/05/improving-students-attention-span-with-educational-technology/ https://tinybuddha.com/blog/will-there-be-a-day-when-technology-takes-over-us-all/ https://www.humanetech.com/take-control https://www.rica.nsw.edu.au/resources/managing-students-attention-in-an-age-of-digital-distractions/ https://www.mobicip.com/blog/negative-effects-of-technology

There’s certainly something gloriously post-modern about starting a thread about people getting noticeably stupider, not making any argument and then not returning to the thread. As though a rage bait thread that will contribute to the perceived increase in stupidity caused by social media and the internet is about that very subject. Great work!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289604000522

The 'negative Flynn effect' article mentioned upthread.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156?via%3Dihub

'A reverse Flynn effect was found for composite ability scores with large US adult sample from 2006 to 2018 and 2011 to 2018.'

(the 'Flynn effect' was the finding that IQ scores had risen steadily from 1900 to about 1975)

Exactly the same here. I used to get through at least 2 books a week, have not read a proper paper book in some years now. The desire for the narrative has been satiated by endless free, or cheap movies, YouTube et al.

But reading a physical book really does bring me great peace, and we do process things quite differently to reading on a screen.

I have hundreds of neglected books here, so now I have started by re-reading old favourites, and am re-training myself to do so daily. It's just, simply, good for me.

I was rather enjoying many of the contributions, as if the OP was indeed hoping only for ragebait, they have not succeded, as there's plenty of valuable information and discussion in the thread.

IQ is only a measure of how good you are at IQ tests. Which you can practise and get better at. It doesn't measure intelligence.

I should have said "a bunch of articles and links, many of them referencing studies" rather than "a bunch of studies".

Lack.of pride and shame.

"Plus teachers in the past highlighted people who were less intelligent and others mocked them. Now it's rightly seen as cruel. But kids who went through school in the naughties are now adults and unaware that they are a bit thick or lack knowledge of things, so they've not learnt to shut up."
True. Occasionally I've heard someone make a really dim remark showing a complete inability to follow simple logic, curled my toes in secondhand embarrassment braced for the awkward moment when we both know they've said something idiotic and.....nothing. They sail on completely oblivious and probably couldn't care less anyway.

Also, the ignoble but quite delicious little ego boost of knowing stuff or having a skill isn't as potent as it used to be when everyone has it in their pocket in the form of google, chat GPT, the phone's calculator and youtube How To type videos. I love that these things exist for all to use, although in reality I probably spend 40 x longer watching funny cat videos than I do on skill acquistion.

Well it’s difficult to compare properly to the past because most of us weren’t around then, or we were very young. We can only make assumptions. And if you asked everyone, it would be someone else who is the problem, so how do we actually work out who the “stupid” ones are? And if we’re talking about a specific age group, well then that’s surely at least partially our fault or our parents’ fault as we’re the ones raising them/have been raised this way.

I read more than ever, far more than when only paper books were available and there is no difference between a paper book and reading the same book on a screen. Screen is often better as I can change the font or spacing. Reading for pleasure has a lot of competition now but there are plenty of people devouring books still.

Well, no.

Intelligence quotient tests are useful for quantifying distinct components of human thought, specifically working memory, information processing speed, verbal comprehension, and visual spatial reasoning.

Comparing subscores reveals where a person excels or struggles. For example, showing such abstract problem solving alongside slow mental processing speed. IQ tests provide a useful benchmark for raw mental efficiency and pattern recognition.

In the legal system, courts often rely on IQ tests to help establish competency or determine financial damages - for example after a head injury.

Across public health and epidemiology, researchers use cognitive testing data (often from IQ tests) to measure the impact of environmental toxins like lead, malnutrition, or infectious diseases on human brain development across populations.

In addition, military forces and complex industries use cognitive aptitude batteries to predict how quickly recruits and job applicants will master technical training and adapt to high pressure situations where rapid troubleshooting is critical.

So, no, I'm afraid you have the wrong idea about IQ tests as well.

And what exactly do we mean by “intelligence”? Academic intelligence, common sense, social skills, creativity, good mental health, resilience, initiative, independence, practical skills etc? The list could go on.

There are, of course, definitions available. However, it's rather like that famous quote on hard core pornography something like "it's hard to define it, but I know it when I see it".

Exactly. It sounds just like the perpetual belief in our own superiority over the succeeding generations.

No, no it really doesn't. The genuine concerns which are clearly outlined, defined and factually based show no such thing.

But you already know that :)

No but it's now on my Disney watchlist

Just because they are used a lot does not mean they are a reliable test of intelligence. They are a test of things that IQ tests measure, which is limited. And a test is only a measure of performance on a given day.

I doubt there was anything as cerebral as Only Connect on television in the 1970s though was there? Mastermind and University Challenge are still going strong too so I don't think your argument about 1970s TV being far more intellectual than it is now really holds weight.

No, it doesn't - but you already know that :)

I was wondering if you were a bot, you do sound very much like one. But I think, on reflection, just a bored sealion, a type of trolling I found the definition for just recently.

For those who don't know: "Sealioning is a form of online trolling or harassment where an individual pursues someone with relentless, bad faith requests for evidence or repeated questions while maintaining a pretense of civility and sincerity. The term was popularized by the 2014 webcomic Wondermark by David Malki, titled "The Terrible Sea Lion," which depicted a sea lion relentlessly harassing a character for their opinion on sea lions."

I knew from the beginning you were making bad faith statements, of course, but it pleased me to spend a few minutes debunking your statements. And now it pleases me to simply point out that I know you are a sealion if you continue your silly hobby :)

I was about to say the same! It’s becoming more like a prediction of the future! 😬