People are getting stupider?

I guess it depends how IQ is tested. Most online tests are based on recognising series of shapes or numbers which is testing a particular kind of puzzled solving.

What I do detect nowadays is a lack of general knowledge, awareness or interest in what is going on in the world.

I wonder whether the world had become such a complex place with unsolvable problems that people are simply switching off, ceasing to engage, choosing the trivial over the important.

I spent years commuting to London. People, especially in the morning, would be reading newspapers, many choosing quality broadsheets. Nowadays, people are immersed in their devices playing games, scrolling through their social media. Those that are looking at news are getting it in short bites. I rarely see anyone reading a newspaper or a book on public transport anymore.

I can’t see how basic IQ levels could go down because of screentime Maw I think it would need many more studies to prove that was actually the case surely.Interesting though.

Maybe not Grandma but they’re not that bad!

A levels are not what they were, M0nica.

Bear in mind you need to be pretty vacant minded to want to be on a program like Love Island. What bothered me was that some of the participants with minds that empty claimed to have A levels and yet were so ignorant (based on what I have read in the papers and online).

KatyK - that's hilarious.

I don't watch it either KatyK but maybe I will have to start. It seems to be producing some gems of comedy no-one could have made up! I do wonder about the education system and if we can consider it value for money if these are the results.

Oh yes trisher Love Island. I don't watch it myself but there was a clip from it on another programme. A young girl was asked by another: 'What do you think of Brexit?' Reply: 'What's that then?' Other girl: 'You know, coming out of the European Union?' Reply: 'Does that mean we won't have any more trees?' Another voice piped up 'No more cheese?' Reply: 'No trees'. Another voice: 'Does that mean we won't be able to go on holiday? I love my holidays.'

I thought this was to do with that clip of the girl on Love Island who thought she had learned some geography, because she knew there were continents, countries (struggled with that and county) and towns. When asked what Wales was she said a town, second guess continent!

I read about those reports too.
As one writer pointed out, IQ tests in themselves may not be reliable, or valid for our times.
Most of those currently used include questions/practical tests based on topics of earlier times.
They were standardised by giving these tests to a large number of people of different ages then fixing the mean etc according to the the number of people answering correctly at the various levels.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329831-300-it-would-be-stupid-to-ignore-a-drop-in-human-intellect/

Not the same article but perhaps a less contentious source