Is Generation Z the First Generation Not to Surpass Their Parents?
The Flynn effect—rising IQ scores across generations—appears to have stopped or reversed in developed nations. The issue is not intelligence but cognitive habits: outsourcing memory, calculation, and deep reading to devices may weaken concentration, working memory, and analytical thinking in Generation Z.
Never in history have people had access to so much information. And yet, specialists observe an unexpected phenomenon: in more and more countries, the cognitive progress that characterized previous generations seems to have stopped. What has changed?
For nearly a century, researchers observed an interesting phenomenon: each generation achieved, on average, better results on intelligence tests than the preceding one. This phenomenon was named the Flynn effect and was explained by better access to education, nutrition, medical services and information.
Today however, more and more studies raise a question mark. In numerous developed countries, this progress seems to have stopped, and in some cases even reversed.
We cannot say that young people from Generation Z are less intelligent. That would be unfair and incorrect. They are remarkable in many respects: they adapt quickly to technology, find information in a few seconds and use digital tools with impressive naturalness.
The problem is not intelligence, but the way we use it. The brain functions like a muscle. It develops when it is challenged to think, to memorize, to analyze and to solve problems. Today however, many of these processes have been taken over by phones, search engines and, more recently, by artificial intelligence.
Why memorize, if you can search? Why calculate, if the phone does it instantly? Why read an entire book, if you can watch a one-minute summary?
Without realizing it, we exercise less and less those functions that develop deep thinking. Specialists observe a decline in concentration capacity, difficulties in maintaining attention, a weaker working memory and a tendency to process information superficially, instead of understanding it in depth.
Technology is not to blame. It is one of the most extraordinary tools created by man. The problem appears when technology begins to think in our place.
A calculator can offer the correct answer. But it cannot replace curiosity, intellectual effort or the joy of discovering an idea on your own.
Perhaps the real challenge of Generation Z is not the lack of intelligence, but the struggle to preserve their attention in a world that constantly competes for every second of it.
As parents and teachers, perhaps we should not ask ourselves whether this generation is more intelligent or less intelligent. Perhaps we should ask ourselves how we help children use their intelligence in a world where answers are a click away, but deep thinking becomes increasingly rare.
In the end, perhaps the real question is not whether Generation Z surpasses their parents or not. But whether we, as a society, offer them the conditions to fully realize their potential. Because intelligence does not mean only what we know. It also means the capacity to ask questions, to reflect, to understand and to create.
And perhaps the most fitting description of the times we live in is this:
The generation that knows everything... but does it still have time to think?
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