I confess that when I read the first studies on the decline of human intelligence, I thought: "here is yet another exaggeration". Then I began to notice small changes around: the difficulty in maintaining attention on complex texts, the tendency to jump from one piece of information to another. without going into anything in depth, even a certain laziness (in me) in tackling mathematical problems that I once solved without difficulty.
It's not me who is aging badly (maybe); it's a collective phenomenon. Human intelligence is actually decreasing, as confirmed by research from the University of Michigan and the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Cognitive abilities in adolescents and young adults show a worrying decline: we are experiencing a profound change in our relationship with information and knowledge, with consequences that we are only beginning to understand.
The Decline of Human Intelligence: A Measurable and Disturbing Phenomenon
The numbers don’t lie, and in this case they tell a worrying story. People of all ages are showing difficulty concentrating and a loss of reasoning, problem-solving, and information-processing skills; all aspects of a metric (though difficult to measure) that we commonly call “intelligence.”
The “Monitoring the Future” study of the University of Michigan documents difficulty concentrating in American eighteen-year-olds, while the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) measures a decline in learning skills of 15-year-olds around the world. Years of research suggests that young people are struggling with short attention spans and weakened critical thinking.
These are trends that have been evident since at least the mid-2010s, suggesting that whatever is happening has deeper roots and has been going on much longer.
We don't read anymore (and we don't even do the math)
One of the key indicators of this decline in human intelligence is the drastic reduction in reading. An example: in the USA, in 2022 the National Endowment for the Arts he noted and only 37,6% of Americans declared having read a novel or a short story in the previous year; a decreasing percentage compared to 41,5% in 2017 and 45,2% in 2012.
But it's not just a matter of reading less. According to the 2023 results of theOrganization for Economic Cooperation and Development, lower scores are also recorded in numerical skills. Italy scores 244 points: we are at the fourth to last place in the world followed only by Poland, Portugal and Chile (the OSCE average is 263).
Screens and Brains: A Toxic Relationship
While there are ways to use technology without damaging cognition (and to live with less stress), studies show that “screen time” as we know it today impairs verbal functioning in children and makes it harder for college-age adults to concentrate and retain information.
There is no reason to suggest that human intellect has been permanently damaged, but both in terms of potential and execution, our intelligence is definitely in decline. I don't know how, I don't know how much, but we need to manage our relationship with technology very carefully.
This is what should concern us all, much more than it does now.
