We have all taken an intelligence quotient (IQ) test at least once in our lives. Some of us did it at school. And someone — out of sheer curiosity. A value above 70 means that a person is definitely not an idiot. And if the IQ is 160, congratulations, the next Einstein! However, this test is very controversial and has been criticized more than once, as it is designed only to assess general mental abilities. Therefore, there are many other methods for determining the level of intelligence. And recently, scientists have published the results of several studies that were disappointing: people of all ages have been found to have problems with concentration and reasoning, problem solving, and critical thinking.As it turned out, this trend has been observed for the past few decades. Is humanity really getting inexorably dumber?
Was it better before? No, it wasn’t!
Once upon a time, there was a New Zealand researcher and philosopher named James Flynn. The Flynn Effect was named in his honor. The essence of this phenomenon is that since about the second half of the 20th century, there has been a steady increase in the average IQ of representatives of several generations. This lasted from about the 1930s to the 1970s and 1980s. Intelligence increased by 3-5 points every 10 years in developed countries. The reasons for this are believed to be better nutrition, smaller family sizes, access to education, good medicine, equality between men and women, and the need to adapt to technological progress even in everyday life.
But here’s the interesting thing: since about the 1990s, the Flynn effect has been observed in many developed countries, and it has begun to disappear and even observed is the opposite phenomenon. So maybe the «buzzers» jokes aren’t so funny after all?
For example, a study conducted in Norway showed a drop in IQ scores in men born after 1975.
Some scientists have concluded that dysgenic fertility (when people with low IQ or undesirable genetic characteristics have more children than people with higher IQ or more desirable genetic traits) and environmental influences may be the two most serious causes.
On the sign below you can see one of the researchThe analysis compares how certain factors influenced the Flynn effect and the Flynn reverse effect. The scores are shown on a scale from 1 to 9, where 1 means that the reason is not at all important and 9 — very important. This helps to understand how important the experts considered each of the factors to be in explaining changes in IQ (both positive and negative).
The researchers used administrative registers in Norway, which contained data on the cognitive abilities of men who had served in the military. They analyzed the IQ tests of three cohorts (in statistics, a group of people who share a common defining characteristic) born between 1962 and 1991. It was a huge sample, including as many as 730,000 men. But the scientists did not just compare different families, but also brothers from the same family. Because brothers have similar genes and a common upbringing, a similar level of income and education of their parents. So if the difference in IQ between brothers depended on the year of birth, it meant that the reason was not in certain genes, but in the environment.
The researchers compared how IQ scores changed within families and saw that the trend of the Flynn effect and its reversal could be fully explained by intra-family changes. This means that the factors that influenced IQ changed over time and affected each of the brothers differently, depending on the year they were born
And here’s what’s interesting: in the table above, you can see the factors that potentially influenced the decline in the IQ within the family: migration, declining educational values, deterioration of education and the school system, television and the media
Interestingly, computers, smartphones, television, and the media were also mentioned as positive causes (responsible for the increase in IQ). But the experts gave the greatest importance to the positive effect of Flynn within families to health, nutrition, and good education.
The results showed that both the positive and negative Flynn effects are not related to family status (e.g., immigration or large number of children). Instead, there is a certain relationship between the environment (meaning education, nutrition, and health) and the year of birth of these men.
Where is the «brain burner» hidden?
As mentioned above, changes in the environment when a certain generation of people are born can have a strong impact. However, a recent study showed that problems with concentration and reasoning skills began to appear in the mid-2010s and were independent of age. And this trend has increased markedly during the COVID-2019 pandemic due to educational disabilities, reports Financial Times. However, the coronavirus only negatively changed the situation for a few years. This means that what affects the level of intelligence of different age groups existed much earlier than before 2019.
There is no clear answer to why people are having problems with cognitive skills, but some of the key indicators are the sharp decline in reading levels, rapid changes in the world (especially in technology), and the way we consume information and media.
For example, in 2022, the National Endowment for the Arts discoveredThe survey found that only 37.6% of Americans said they had read a novel or short story during the year. For comparison: in 2017, this figure was 41.5%, and in 2012 it was 45.2%. It seems that the culprit has been found: people are getting dumber because they read less. But no. According to results study from 2023, 34% of adults in the United States are not good with numbers. A year earlier, this share was only 29%.
Well, now we’ve found the last man standing! It’s gadgets! And here we pass. Well, not quite because technology is an integral part of life, and it can have a positive impact, too, as evidenced by this this study. Video games, for example, help adolescents experiment and «try on» different personalities and experiences. Social networks have helped to maintain and improve offline social relationshipsWe have seen all this before, and more than once.
For example, in Plato’s dialogue «Phaedrus», written around 370 BC, he described Socrates’ concern that the invention of writing and reading would destroy young people’s ability to use memory, and they would only appear to be well-educated and wise when in fact they would be foolish. Similar fears over the past centuries have been raised about novels, which spawned reading addiction and risky immoral behavior in the 18th century. Then there were concerns about the negative effects of radio, television, smartphones, video games, and social media.
The problem lies not in the devices themselves, but in the way they are used. Uncontrolled hours of procrastination in front of the screen in search of a «fast» dopamine have proven to be very negative. In one of the papers, scientists discoveredthat watching TV negatively affects children’s verbal memory. Preschoolers with long daily TV viewing showed the worst results, and even had speech delay. Students have «thought scrolling» summoned problems with concentration and memorization of information.
On the other hand, action gamescan be are useful for children with reading and writing difficulties (dyslexia), as they have been shown to improve speech decoding speed (the process of translating the content of a received speech message into familiar personal meanings by the addressee) and short-term memory.
Where to look for the culprits?
- Education. There is access to schools and education almost everywhere, but the quality has declined markedly. Instead of logical thinking and problem-solving, the emphasis has shifted to rote learning or test preparation. That is, children «are standardized to», rather than taught to think.
- Gadgets. Laptops, smartphones, tablets — this endless stream of information from Instagram and Netflix. Children and adults are now spending much more time in front of screens, reading less, and reading is one of the best ways to train the brain. Although, in truth, it’s not really the devices themselves that are to blame. It’s the way we use them. It’s a double-edged sword.
- Nutrition. We eat more and better than our ancestors. But processed cheap foods (because natural foods are getting more expensive every day), sugar, and low-quality fats have replaced the simple and nutritious foods that once helped our brains grow.
- Environment. Some experts even point to environmental pollution — heavy metals and microplastics can affect brain development and enter our bodies through water, air, and food. It is already detected in various body tissues. Also, research study from 2019 showed a correlation between polluted air and dementia and cognitive decline. Outdoor exposure to fine particulate matter (particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter < 2.5 microns) is the fifth leading risk factor for death worldwide: 4.2 million deaths and more than 103 million disability-adjusted life years lost, according to the Global Burden of Disease Report. Small and ultrafine particles penetrate organs and damage tissue.
The fact that IQ continues to grow in developing countries is another indirect indication of this. This is because education and nutrition are still improving there. It looks as if the world is divided in half: part of humanity has reached the conventional pinnacle of development, and the other is just climbing up. A study from 2023 also found that suggeststhat in economically developed countries, a high IQ predicts a stronger recession — perhaps because there is no room for growth there.
Have people reached the limit of brain power?
On the one hand, numerous studies show: IQ is falling inexorably with each new generation. On the other hand, intelligence tests themselves have long been criticized for their limitations. How said According to psychologist Howard Gardner in his theory of multiple intelligences, intelligence — is not only logic or math abilities that IQ tests measure, but also emotional intelligence, creativity, social skills, and much more. In other words, a drop in IQ may not reflect a general decline in intelligence, but a shift in priorities in which skills have become more important over time. A modern person may be less skilled at solving problems, but at the same time better able to adapt to new technologies.
In addition, the world is completely different now. We have to multitask and maneuver through the daily huge flows of information, which was not the case before. Reading books required concentration and analysis. Now we mostly scroll through social media feeds and watch short videos. For example, over the past 20 years, the average attention span fell to 47 seconds. By 2012, the average was 75 seconds. In 2004, it was 2.5 minutes. Due to information overload, our brains lose the ability to think deeply and have difficulty doing so.
Research by Stanford University revealedThe researchers say that modern people are able to process more information at the same time than previous generations. But memory loss and poor concentration are the price of multitasking.
The way we consume information and perform our daily tasks has changed dramatically. It is not the case that we are becoming less intelligent. Instead, there are things that absorb our attention but do not benefit our intelligence. Instead of active reading, we have moved to passive content consumption. There is no need to think, just to scroll through video after video, episode after episode.
Over the past 5 years or so, human life has been radically changed by the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI)-based chatbots. Unfortunately, many people perceive «the iron lumberjack» as an unquestionable paragon of wisdom and knowledge, despite the fact that developers are constantly reminding them: AI can make mistakes and hallucinate.
We have started to transfer even simple everyday mental tasks to AI bots. What to cook with a certain set of products? How to respond in a dialog? How to complain about life and listen to advice? All this and much more. Even intimate things are coming under the control of AI. У Death Stranding by Hideo Kojima people stopped communicating with each other and became asexual.
We can already see the first signs that AI is becoming not only an assistant that thinks about complex tasks, but also a psychologist and a friend. An ideal partner who listens and says exactly what you want to hear, pleases the ego and is addictive. More and more often, people talk about the so-called «digital loneliness», when it is easier for people to turn to AI than to their loved ones.
In addition, fresh research Research by Carnegie Mellon and Microsoft has shown that the more people rely on AI, the less they think critically. Even in the creative field, workers who use AI tools have less diverse results for the same task compared to people who rely on their abilities. This suggests that we «relax» and let machines do the thinking for us.
Hard times create smart people. Smart people create good times. Good times create stupid people. Stupid people create hard times.
But AI can also be a development tool. For example, students who use AI to learn programming have improved their analytical skills. But only if they used AI as an assistant and didn’t just copy answers. Otherwise research analyzed data from more than 4,800 developers from Microsoft, Accenture, and other Fortune 100 companies who accessed GitHub with Copilot. They found that there was an increase in productivity: an average of 26% more tasks, a 38.4% increase in code compilation rate, no negative impact on code quality, and less experienced developers had the greatest productivity gains.
Thus, the drop in IQ (and the assessment of this test has long been questioned), the reduction in concentration time, and the penetration of AI into all areas indicate a gradual loss of some skills, such as critical and deep thinking. Instead, the human brain is acquiring new ones: it is now able to process information quickly and perform several tasks simultaneously. We are not getting dumber, we are adapting.
Now the key is to learn not to let AI think for us, to use it only as a tool, to read more books, and not to avoid difficult tasks. The brain — is also a kind of muscle that needs increased loads for hypertrophy.
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