• Super Admin
• 07 Mar, 2026

A recent study claiming that intelligence quotient scores are declining among Generation Z ignited widespread debate across academic, social, and public policy circles. Emerging research suggests that young people born roughly between the mid-1990s and early 2010s, known as Gen Z, may be performing lower on standardised cognitive tests than previous generations, the Millennials, at comparable ages. Proponents of the study argue that shifting educational practices, lifestyle changes, increased screen time, and environmental factors could be contributing to measurable drops in certain cognitive abilities. The study noted that every generation has outperformed its parents, but Gen Z is the first generation in history to perform below its parents. Critics, however, caution against generalising from limited data, questioning the methods used, the interpretation of IQ as a fixed measure of intelligence, and the cultural biases inherent in testing. The study, highlighted by a neuroscientist, Dr Jared Horvath, suggests that Gen Z may be the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardised IQ and cognitive tests (two to four points lower) than their predecessors, reversing the long-term 'Flynn Effect'. The 'Flynn Effect' is the documented, long-term increase in fluid and crystallised intelligence test scores observed worldwide throughout the 20th century. Named after researcher James Flynn, this trend shows an average increase of roughly three points per decade, meaning newer generations often score higher on old IQ tests. However, the decline, noted in US and European studies, spans verbal comprehension, working memory, and focus, likely driven by digital habits, reduced attention spans, and shifts in educational approaches. Horvath argued that classroom environments underwent a rapid digital transformation, resulting in stagnation or decline in literacy, numeracy, problem-solving, creativity, and general cognitive performance among adolescents. He added that the trend is not limited to the United States, as data from dozens of countries suggest that widespread adoption of digital technology in classrooms often coincides with declining academic performance. "Across 80 countries, if you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly. Any time tech enters education, learning goes down," he argued. In a written testimony presented to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Horvath, an educator, explained the need for federal policy to restore balance by demanding evidence and ensuring that innovation serves learning rather than attention capture. In his 'Testimony' obtained by Sunday PUNCH on its official website, Horvath said, "Over the past two decades, the cognitive development of children across much of the developed world has stalled and, in many domains, reversed. "Literacy, numeracy, attention, and higher-order reasoning have declined despite increased school attendance and expanded public investment. One major structural change distinguishes today's classrooms from those of prior generations: the rapid and largely unregulated expansion of educational technology. Digital devices now occupy a significant share of instructional time, assessment, homework, and student attention. "The available evidence shows that increased classroom screen exposure is generally associated with weaker learning outcomes, not stronger ones." He noted that in narrow circumstances, digital tools can support surface-level skill acquisition, but in most core academic contexts, screens slow learning, reduce depth of understanding, and weaken retention. This, according to him, is not primarily a question of teacher quality, student motivation, or access to devices; rather, it reflects a structural mismatch between how human cognition develops and how digital platforms are engineered to capture attention, fragment focus, and accelerate task switching. "If federal policy continues to incentivise large-scale digital adoption without demanding independent efficacy evidence, privacy protections, and developmental safeguards, it risks compounding long-term educational and workforce harm," Horvath added. Horvath emphasised that for most of the 20th century, cognitive performance steadily improved across generations, driven largely by expanding access to formal education and improved instructional quality. However, he noted that, beginning in the mid-2000s, this trend plateaued, then reversed in many Western nations. "Multiple indicators now show stagnation or decline in literacy, numeracy, problem-solving, creativity, and general cognitive performance among adolescents. At the same time, classroom environments underwent a rapid digital transformation. "One-to-one device programmes, cloud platforms, online assessments, adaptive software, and constant connectivity became standard practice in many districts, often without independent longitudinal validation. "Over half of our children now use a computer at school for one to four hours each day, and a full quarter spend more than four hours on screens during a typical seven-hour school day. "Unfortunately, studies suggest that less than half of this time is spent actually learning, with students off-task for up to 38 minutes of every hour when on classroom devices," the researcher added. Reacting to the new study, a neurologist, Dr Aisha Ibrahim, said the decline could be a result of poor consumption of quality materials, especially due to the over-consumption of poor and low-quality materials on social media platforms by Gen Z, a phenomenon she described as 'brain rot.' She added that Gen Z is more concerned with shortcuts, while their parents are still deeply involved in getting in-depth solutions to problems and are not only focused on getting the answers, which Gen Z is after. Buttressing this point, a writer at Fortune (Online platform), Sasha Rogelberg, wrote, "The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents." According to the Oxford University Press, 'brain rot' is defined as "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of over-consumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenged. Also: something characterised as likely to lead to such deterioration." Sunday PUNCH learnt that the term increased in usage frequency by 230 per cent between 2023 and 2024 and is used to capture conacerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term 'brain rot' originated with American philosopher Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 book Walden. Thoreau used the phrase metaphorically to describe a perceived decline in intellectual standards and critical thinking, comparing it to "potato rot." While it has 19th-century roots, it was named Oxford University Press' 2024 Word of the Year due to its modern 230 per cent increase in usage. Sustaining this line of argument, an educator and lecturer at Legacy University, Okija, Anambra State, Dr Vincent Ezeme, said there is a difference between someone who reads through books to find answers and another who simply clicks on ChatGPT to get a response. He explained that to obtain an answer from a book, one would have to read several other pages and gain more insight, saying that such a person will come across other information that makes them more informed than the person who just gets answers at the click of a button. "When my children come to ask me the meaning of a particular word, I don't tell them. I refer them to the dictionary because when they get there, they won't only look for that word; they will also see the meanings of other words in the process. But if I simply tell them, I would have stopped them from learning more, and they may even forget it because they didn't do any exercises to retain it. "This doesn't mean that online AI-enabled answers are not good, but replacing normal learning with information that cannot be substantiated sometimes is counter-productive. So, the same applies to someone who goes online, reads poor materials, and clicks on AI to get answers instantly. "Ask such a person further questions about that answer and he may not know them, unlike someone who spent quality time flipping through the pages of books to obtain information. So the research is supposed to reflect the situation with Gen Z," he argued. Shedding more light on this, another neurologist and Chairman of the International Institutes of Advanced Research and Training Centre at Chidicon Medical Centre, Owerri, Imo State, Dr Philip Njemanze, said although some studies suggest a decline in traditional IQ scores, "this does not necessarily mean that intelligence itself is declining." Njemanze, a former Principal Investigator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration for the study of the 'Brain in Space,' said many researchers observe that Gen Z demonstrates strong abilities in areas that older IQ tests were not designed to measure -- such as digital navigation, rapid visual processing, multitasking across screens, and filtering large amounts of online information. He said, "This suggests that we may not be witnessing a loss of intelligence, but rather a shift in the type of cognitive skills being developed in a digital environment. Some scholars describe this as a possible 'reverse Flynn Effect,' referring to changes in IQ trends across generations. "General intelligence, in simple terms, is the brain's overall ability to reason, solve problems, and adapt to new situations. At the International Institutes of Advanced Research and Training Centre at Chidicon Medical Centre, we were the first to directly measure changes in cerebral blood flow velocity in the brain during tasks requiring general intelligence. "Using transcranial Doppler ultrasonography, we demonstrated that general intelligence tasks activate different hemispheres of the brain depending on sex: predominantly the right hemisphere in men and the left hemisphere in women (Njemanze PC. Cerebral lateralisation and general intelligence: gender differences in a transcranial Doppler study. Brain and Language, 2005)," he said. According to him, in the era of social media and artificial intelligence, the nature of intellectual tasks has evolved. "Rather than focusing primarily on abstract reasoning problems, today's challenges often involve efficiently locating, selecting, and applying vast amounts of available data. Intelligence is increasingly expressed as information management and utility. "Our institute is now focused on Brain-Computer Interface systems aimed at integrating human intelligence with artificial intelligence to improve creativity and decision-making. We developed the world's first Human Mental Performance Monitoring System using AI and blockchain-secured neural network algorithms (United States Patent 11,487,891 B2). "Our goal is clear: regardless of how intelligence profiles shift in Gen Z, we can enhance human cognitive performance through responsible AI integration. The future of intelligence is not decline but augmentation -- and we are actively shaping that future here in Nigeria," he added. However, experts said this is not a debate about rejecting technology, but rather a question of aligning educational tools with how human learning actually works. "Evidence indicates that indiscriminate digital expansion has weakened learning environments rather than strengthened them. Federal policy can restore balance by demanding evidence, protecting children's developmental needs, and ensuring that innovation serves learning rather than attention capture. "Our responsibility is not to maximise screen exposure, but to maximise the cognitive capacity and long-term flourishing of the next generation. More than half of the time a teenager is awake is spent staring at a screen," Horvath told the New York Post. He added that humans are biologically programmed to learn through interactions with other humans, such as peers and teachers, and from deep study, "not flipping through screens for bullet-point summaries." Horvath hopes policymakers will rethink the role of technology in schools, particularly for the next cohort, Generation Alpha, believing that reducing screen time and emphasising rigorous study methods could help reverse the decline in cognitive performance among future students. However, today's youth are getting quick answers from AI and videos, a methodology that has hurt their intelligence. "The human mind was not meant to learn through short video clips or summaries of texts. Soaking in complex ideas and knowledge requires reliance on larger books meant to be read," he argued. Source: https://punchng.com/?p=2083659