As children, we have often heard the series of advice from our elders beginning with the words "When I was your age..." They were usually related to parents' dissatisfaction and complaints about their children. When my father scolded me and started his teaching-discipline "session" with "When I was your age...", I noticed that years later, when I became a father myself, I began applying the same to my children.
Are children less intelligent than their parents, or is it the opposite?
Researchers have found that the average IQ level (intelligence quotient) of younger generations is higher than that of older generations...
There is a phenomenon called the "Flynn effect."
This is the phenomenon of a continuous increase in average IQ indicators from generation to generation. It was discovered in 1984 by the American psychologist James Flynn (1934 – 2020). According to the Flynn effect, the new generation is smarter, with a higher intellectual level than the previous one.
In my opinion, it is not correct to view the Flynn effect phenomenon as a mysterious biological leap. This effect is not about a sudden change in the human brain but relates to changes in the thinking environment of society. In other words, the increase in IQ of the new generation is not a result of changes in the brain but of the renewal of the world.
The main reason for the Flynn effect was not related to genetics because genes cannot change so rapidly in just one century. The reason is different and very simple:
– mass education,
– compulsory primary and secondary education,
– the spread of abstract thinking,
– mathematics, graphs, diagrams, maps,
– expansion of written culture,
– the daily incorporation of city life, technology, and industry.
At the beginning of the 20th century, people were required to think concretely: land, tools, objects, physical strength. From the mid-20th century onward, abstract thinking became mandatory: interest rates, probability, function, model, risk. IQ tests measure precisely this. That's why the increase occurred.
But now it turns out that in some developed countries, the Flynn effect has started to reverse — to decline. The Flynn effect originated in the heart of the Western world and is now reaching its end right there — it has completely stopped in Norway and Sweden and begun to turn in the opposite direction in Denmark and Finland.
I believe the reason is again not biological but cultural and technological in nature. The human brain is still the same brain, but the mode of thinking has changed.
Today’s people read less, write less, are more inattentive, etc. Screens weaken abstract thinking, while encouraging reaction speed and emotional response. Algorithms "automate" choice by eliminating thinking. In other words, we do not think; pre-thought options are presented to us, and we select one of them.
A shift in mental mode is happening. The 20th-century person lived in a mathematical-abstract mode, while the 21st-century person lives in a visual-reactive mode. IQ tests are still a measuring tool from the old world.
An important point is that the myth of "our ancestors were wiser, smarter" has no scientific basis at all. Viewed by today's standards, past humans read less, had a narrower worldview, and believed more in superstition. Their "wisdom" arose from experience, not understanding. These two are not the same.
But at the same time, I also see a danger. The intellectual leap of the 20th century was not at a stable level. As education weakens, reading culture collapses, and language becomes impoverished, the Flynn effect fades too. Because the "fuel" for this effect was books, school, and text.
In other words, the Flynn effect was not about a person becoming "smarter" but about being forced to live in a more complex world. When the world simplifies, or is presented to us in a simple form, the brain also begins to retreat and "not care."
Then this question arises:
Are we regressing, or have we simply delegated thinking to technology?
There is no answer to this question yet.
İbrahim Nəbioğlu
