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Gen Z is the 1st generation with lower IQs than their parents (tech education fail) - C C - Aug 30, 2026
Gen Z is the first generation with lower IQs than their parents: Here's why
https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle/gen-z-first-generation-lower-iqs-parents-why-4732995
INTRO: “Gen Z is the first generation in history to be less cognitively developed than their parents’ generation,” Jared Cooney Horvath, author of newly published book The Digital Delusion, tells me. “I would never say ‘stupider’,” the teacher and neuroscientist adds with a smile. “I just say less ‘cognitively developed’ because maybe there’s something else going on that we don’t know.”
He says that until 2010, every generation was cognitively superior to their parents. The reason for this was that school and education for students were consistently improving. “The golden age of education was from about 1996 to 2010,” he explains. But since then, IQ scores worldwide have been going down. He believes this is linked directly to screens becoming widespread in schools. “Human beings are not biologically wired to learn very well from tech: we’re built to learn from other humans,” he says.
Ed-tech is big business, generating an annual turnover of around £6.5bn in the UK, according to the Department for Education and closer to $400bn in the US, where 88 per cent of all students have their own school laptop. It might sound excellent for equipping children for the digital age, but Horvath believes it is a case of humans mistaking tools for skills.
“The rule is: learn the skill first, then use the tool to make it easier. If you use the tool to begin with, you’ll never develop the skill,” he says. “If you know how to format an essay and spell certain words, now we’ll bring in word processing. But if you start on a word processor, you will forever be dependent on the tool. If we give you a calculator before you understand arithmetic, you will forever be tied to the calculator.”
Technology also gives us an illusion of confidence. “GPS is easier than reading a map, but it leads you to believe that you understand navigation better – unless you grew up with maps and realise, ‘I suck at navigation now.’”
He believes that we have, en masse, made a mistake in believing that higher order skills of creativity, critical thinking and communication are separate from knowledge. “People thought that we now have knowledge from the internet or AI, so all we need to do is build those skills and kids’ [intelligence] is going to explode,” he says. “But creativity and critical thinking emerge from knowledge. The more we learn, the more creative we are. And the less we teach our kids, the less creative and critical they will be.”
“In 2018, Singapore had the best academic performance worldwide on science, maths and reading and the best performance on all measures of creativity. Number two, in both, was Japan. It’s basically a perfect correlation [between academics and creativity].” Japan has been slow to adopt technology in classrooms, with tablets rolled out in 2019, almost a decade after Sweden, which, after adopting ed-tech early, has now increased paper-based learning and reduced screen time.
In contrast, Singapore has been an earlier adopter of technology: it is currently supporting teachers to use AI, but the Government’s technology policy is clear that “teachers are navigators” and cautions that “over-reliance on AI could potentially hinder the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills.”
Directors of the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study international assessments believe that it is the quality of teaching and status of education, which is considered a priority, that means Singapore tops leaderboards internationally.
Horvath finds that Singapore, Japan, Korea and China come top in all the international tests he compares... (MORE - details)