According to a top neuroscientist, Gen Z (born between 1997 and 2010) is the first generation to perform worse in school than the one before them.
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To make it even crazier, Gen Z (to put it in their own terms) seems low-key proud of being hella clueless.
Neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, a 43-year-old elder Millennial who clearly remembers a world without TikTok, recently explained it all to The New York Post.
“They’re the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized academic tests than the one before it,” Dr. Horvath told the outlet. “And to make matters worse, most of these young people are overconfident about how smart they are. The smarter people think they are, the dumber they actually are.”
The data seems to suggest that Gen Z missed the memo on most intellectual fronts.
“They underperformed on basically every cognitive measure, from basic attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function, and general IQ,’ he added.
Per The Post, Horvath recently testified to the sad facts before Congress, telling a panel of lawmakers that Generation Z, following the Millennials, managed to blow up humanity’s proud academic record… in the worst way possible.
The Likely Reason Gen Z is (Allegedly!) Dumber Than Previous Generations…
That said, the decline of our latest emerging adults is pretty obvious.
After analyzing a mountain of data from standardized academic tests, Horvath told Congress that Gen Z’s struggles basically come down to one thing: They were the first generation to grow up with constant screen time.
“More than half of a teenager’s waking hours are spent staring at a screen,” explained Horvath, who has taught at universities worldwide, including Harvard and the University of Melbourne in Australia. He added, “Humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans and from deep study, not flipping through screens for bullet point summaries.”
Digital devices, known as educational technology (Edtech), dominate their focus during class and homework.
Then, outside of school, students trade deep reading for TikTok feeds, snippy Snapchats, and plot summaries. Learning from screens has turned students into skimmers, said Horvath. Without the “heavy lifting” of deep reading, he argues, their cognitive abilities suffer.
Horvath isn’t calling for a full-on digital detox, just a return to some old-school academic grit. “I’m not anti-tech. I’m pro-rigor,” he said, suggesting schools limit screen time and bring back the days when passing a test might require cracking open a book and pulling an all-nighter.
“A sad fact our generation has to face is this: Our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age,” Horvath explained to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology. “We’ve been measuring cognitive development since the 1800s, and it looks like the graph isn’t trending in the right direction.”
“Every generation has outperformed their parents,” Horvath pointed out.“Until Gen Z.”
Neuroscientist Has Hope For Future Generations
And it’s not just an American problem.
It’s a global issue, according to Horvath, who moonlights as the founder of LME Global, an Arizona-based group working to improve academic outcomes. “Across 80 countries, if you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly,” he said.
“Any time tech enters education, learning goes down,” Horvath warned.
Horvath is holding out hope for the next generation. He envisions policies that dial back tech in classrooms, giving Generation Alpha a fighting chance to become the real brainiacs of tomorrow… no screens required.