Idiocracy, here we come.
EDIT: more info for those that disagree:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/media/doc/Horvath_Written Testimony.pdf
Yeah this is made up nonsense mate
Enjoy mate.

I always knew humanity peaked with me
User name 😆
And you can tell when you interact with them.
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.
Okaykiddo
How to tell when someone is out of gas:
Okaykiddo
IQ is a shit index, that shouldn’t be taken seriously
So true, GenZ user! /s
So…. You didn’t read the article, and it shows. Maybe it is on to something.
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.
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!

The article does mention IQs being lower, though. It’s just not the only measure mentioned. I’m curious how the others were measured
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.
So, it’s a measurement of Gen Z’s heritable environment?
Or their apathy towards IQ tests.
And again…. They tested for more than just IQ. Read the article. Try and understand it.
Maybe instead of insulting others try to understand what is being said here. 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.
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.
I’ve seen this story before. Seems the kids didn’t like it then either.
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.
Counterpoint with proof: yes it was.
Okaybuddy.
Ah shit, you got me with that one. That right there is undisputable.
ggs 🤝
…um… would you mind pointing me to the other internet that wasn’t soiled by AI that genZ is using to dodge all the AL 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.
*Gestures broadly towards boomers, who seem to be accelerating their dementia by consuming endless facebook slop reels.
This comes off as you disliking an entire generation more than anything else, not gunna lie.
No, it comes off as finding lack of accountability fucking annoying.
I’m not really sure what your point is. Did they all use the internet wrong and become dumber due to some sort of inherent moral failing predestined for humans born after the late 90s? Does being gen z on its own make someone somehow worse than everyone else? If the same people who now are gen z were somehow born instead in the 80s or 60s would they somehow improve or be the same people we see today? Are you suggesting it is their genetics from some generational decline? Or is there a supreme being who decided people born in that time frame wouldhave souls more inclined to make worse decisions for their intellectual development?
I can understand that you feel attacked and therefore defensive, but understand that saying a generation is bad because some studies prove it is not useful. We can say that overuse of LLMs or social media or digital classrooms has hindered their development. Blaming them for the fact that the people that raised them provided a provably poor developmental environment seems to be ducking the very accountability you claim to be striving for.
I never said a generation is bad. Just that it’s obnoxious that they consider themselves blameless and seemingly perfect in every way with next to no accountability for anything. I don’t hate them, I just have zero respect for anyone that doesn’t take respond for themselves.
We absolutely do not use the same internet. The internet millennials grew up with in their developmental period no longer exists.
The thing with us Millennials is we had to learn like multiple generations worth of stuff and then proceed to not only teach the older generation what we learned but also the younger generations. So naturally there are gaps.
It didn’t include us because we taught ourselves a lot of things because we had to, there was no one teaching us these things. We went from living in the early 80s and having dial up phones, tvs with maybe 3 channels, and for the vast majority of us no access to a computer. then suddenly we transition to cable tv, computers, cell phones, the internet, how to use the internet, how to build websites for the internet, how to communicate with others on the internet, online gaming, smart phones, how to use smart phones, high speed internet, CRT tvs to Plasma to HD, Beta to VHS to Laser discs to DVDs to bluray. having access to very little information to suddenly having access to all the information.
We had to learn how to use ALL this stuff and then teach Gen X and older how to use it followed up by Gen Z and younger. and that’s just the technology. that’s not including all the massive changes to society that happened during our formative years.
The younger generations don’t have any of these massive leaps because it’s all kind of stagnated or regressed. They’re not “forced” to learn anything new to use it or navigate it because we already did that for them. Gen Z doesn’t have to create content like we did, it’s all provided for them and most of it is of poor quality. Our content creation consisted of building our own websites, PHP forums, IRC rooms, building our own social networks, chatrooms, games, etc. They don’t have to do this.
And as far as education it’s the same deal. Remember we were told that we had to learn all this math because we’d never be able to “carry around a calculator with us at all times”. or we had to learn cursive because “that’s how everyone writes”. or that we MUST go to college because THAT’S the only way to get a job. Again because of the technology we built Gen Z and younger doesn’t need any of that, they don’t need to learn it and they’re not learning it.
At the end of the day we thought we’d be making their lives easier with what we HAD to learn but in turn, we’ve made their lives harder because we didn’t tell them WHY we had to learn it. we just handed it all to them and said “good luck.”
I’m hopeful that by the time my nephew has worked out what his fingers are for the AI bubble will have popped and we can have moved back to some sort of reality.
This all reads as speculation to me.
Thanks for sharing.
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.
As a millennial, lmfao get rekt.
Those kids would be real angry of they could read
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.
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”
Don’t forget more misogynistic and more anti-social.
And probably homophobic
How about instead of shitting on the generations that follow, you help them out instead?
This is a bunch of “old man yells at cloud” horse shit.
Right. No. Sorry. I’ve been called “boomer” one too many times for simply politely disagreeing with them. I’m done being nice.
Ok boomer
Okay loser.
Aww, did the little pee pants get their fee fees hurt?
Okay bud. Blocked.
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.
Stop this bullshit of old gen vs new gen.
I will when they will.
100%
I’m Gen X and starting to see a lot of the boomer “uphill both ways to school in the snow with no shoes” bullshit from Gen X. STFU you asshats. My generation simultaneously says it had the greatest time and then turns around and whines about whatever manufactured hardship they come up with when talking about outher gens.
Yeah, we DID and DO have the best of both pre- and post-tech worlds, we arguably had the last shot at the traditional school, college, walk-in-your-resumee career, then buy a home, and the generational motto is “fuck you” if anyone even remembers us, but siddown. Don’t turn into our parents, you assholes.
Millennials are already doing the same thing. Suffering Olympics about how they have had it worse than anyone else but at the same time are the best generation ever produced. FFS. We are all on this planet together, we really should work on improving it for everyone, rather than trying to tear each other apart of perceived slights.
I’d argue that the Millennials did have it bad. They got told they’d have the traditional path, then got shat on by boomers constantly telling them it was their fault for not succeeding because “avocado toast” and “Starbuck’s coffee”. Meanwhile the boomers kept yanking the rug out from under eveyone with boom-bust recessions while saying “oh, that just happens every “x” years” while pillaging the economy by deregulating and consolidating. The milennials got lied to, hard. Generations after them had the “benefit” of knowing they were already fucked.
The millennials did/do have it bad, but more worryingly they’re only the first to have it worse than their parent generation.
Gen Z have lived through almost as much, and have plenty more coming.
Gen Alpha might be the last generation to experience the weather patterns that built the current world order.
Every generation has it’s own problems. I am sure Millennials think they had it bad until you realized Silent Generation had WWII, Boomers had Vietnam, Gen X had Iraq, it goes on and on. And yes, there is certainly a problem with society in general that has allowed for the rise of rampant consumerism following the 1950’s and hasn’t stopped. Millennial’s didn’t get lied to, they decided to act like their parents and not care about fighting a system that doesn’t care about them. Then they had children that care even less.
Iraq directly affected millennials as well, by the by.
So did Vietnam. Not sure what your point is other then reinforcing mine.
No, I mean millennials fought in Iraq.
The current post-covid slump is worse than the Great Depression, and has similarly lead to wars and deaths comparable to WW2 combat casualties (not holocaust/pogrom level cleansing yet, although Israel, China and US/ICE have made some respectable efforts).
Vietnam was 20 years long, but the Ukraine war is already comparable in number of casualties.
Gen X Iraq is comparable to the war in Afghanistan.
But I’ll give the Greatest Generation some leeway, the Spanish Influenza was much deadlier than Covid, and they also had to live through the two world wars. That’s comparable to the Millennial experience (especially if we include HIV/AIDS pandemic), and we don’t yet know if the Millennials will experience a similar subsequent rise in life quality and wealth accumulation.

























