For over a century, IQ scores rose steadily from one generation to the next — the ‘Flynn effect’. Now data from several high-income countries points the other way: young people score lower than their parents did at the same age on memory, reasoning and attention. Danish science outlet Videnskab.dk lays out the debate over whether Gen Z could be the first generation to test as less cognitively able than the one before.
The careful reading matters. A falling test score is not proof of a duller mind: IQ tests capture only part of cognition, and researchers note that young brains may simply be adapting to a screen-saturated, fast-switching world rather than declining. What is measured and what is real are not the same thing.
So…:
Where might a number you track be measuring the old world, not the one your audience now lives in?
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