480

Gen Z is the first generation dumber than their parents, neuroscientist claims (www.vice.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

141 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Gen Z has managed something no modern generation pulled off before. After more than a century of steady academic gains, test scores finally went the other direction. For the first time ever, a new generation is officially dumber than the previous one.

The data comes from neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath, who has spent years reviewing standardized testing results across age groups. “They’re the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized academic tests than the one before it,” Horvath told the New York Post. The declines cut across attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function, and general IQ. That’s not just one weak spot. That’s the whole darn dashboard blinking at once.

Horvath took the same message to Capitol Hill during a 2026 Senate hearing on screen time and children. His framing skipped the generational dunking and focused on exposure. “More than half of the time a teenager is awake, half of it is spent staring at a screen,” he told lawmakers. Human learning, he argued, depends on sustained attention and interaction with other people. Endless feeds and condensed content don’t offer either.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] nek0d3r@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 2 weeks ago

The tests for measuring any intelligence, or for measuring the intelligence of the neurotypical prior generations? Just like the IQ was built around white men, even more modern testing is based on existing bias. We don't even really have a good baseline for what intelligence is, so a metric claiming to measure it comes with a mountain of salt.

[-] Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 15 points 2 weeks ago

Every test no matter how flawed is still fundamentally based on the same general set of skills needed to function as a reasonably intelligent human.

Critical thinking, problem solving, rationalization, stress management, recall, etc.

There's biases in all of the tests and using them to explicitly claim an exact measure of intelligence is dumb as fuck.

You can explicitly claim if someone's passing the bare minimum. Cause when you get to the extreme side of failure you are literally getting to the point where your talking about full blown mental and developmental issues. People who need full life long assistance.

The fact there's any kind of souls regression towards that end of the scale as a trend is terrifying and should be treated as a major problem.

This isn't oh people are just in the spectrum and the tests aren't fair. Or there's racism and stuff build in. Cause that would only show a trend in the related groups and can be legitimately accounted for.

People should not be getting stupider across all demographics. That's a fundamental failing of humanity. We are actually letting the children down.

this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026

480 points (100.0% liked)

News

36118 readers

3156 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious biased sources will be removed at the mods’ discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted separately but not to the post body. Sources may be checked for reliability using Wikipedia, MBFC, AdFontes, GroundNews, etc.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source. Clickbait titles may be removed.

Posts which titles don’t match the source may be removed. If the site changed their headline, we may ask you to update the post title. Clickbait titles use hyperbolic language and do not accurately describe the article content. When necessary, post titles may be edited, clearly marked with [brackets], but may never be used to editorialize or comment on the content.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials, videos, blogs, press releases, or celebrity gossip will be allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis. Mods may use discretion to pre-approve videos or press releases from highly credible sources that provide unique, newsworthy content not available or possible in another format.

7. No duplicate posts.

If an article has already been posted, it will be removed. Different articles reporting on the same subject are permitted. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners or news aggregators.

All posts must link to original article sources. You may include archival links in the post description. News aggregators such as Yahoo, Google, Hacker News, etc. should be avoided in favor of the original source link. Newswire services such as AP, Reuters, or AFP, are frequently republished and may be shared from other credible sources.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

JonsJava@lemmy.world

gedaliyah@lemmy.world

little_cow@lemmy.world