In these days it is easy to come across two disturbing graphics that bounce on social media. They show the progress of the results of some of the most used tests to measure the cognitive skills of teenagers and adults. And the response is clear: for at least a decade, the mathematical and linguistic skills in developed countries are constantly decreasing. How is it possible?
The graphs come from an article by Financial Timesand make evident what many experts have been observing for some time: actually, the cognitive abilities of humanity would seem to have reached, and overcome, their maximum peak. The Pisa (Program for International Student Assessment) tests of the OECD – which in Italy are carried out in the context of the Valresi – for example, have shown an average improvement of the mathematical, literary and scientific knowledge of the 15 -year -olds until they approach the 2012, to then suffer a sharp turnaround, which still continues today.
Similar speech for Piaac tests, which measure linguistic, mathematical and problem solving skills of the population between 16 and 65 years of age. The second cycle of evaluation, made between 2022 and 2023, showed in fact a strong drop almost everywhere, compared to the first carried out in 2011-2012.
And again: in support of the decline of the average mental capabilities of humanity, the Financial Times also mentions the results of the “Monitoring the Future” study of the University of Michigan, which recorded the number of American teenagers annually who evaluate that they have difficulty attention and learning since the 1980s. Here too, the results remained stable for all 90s and 2000s, and then undergoing a surge (i.e. an increase in children with compromised cognitive capabilities) starting from the 191000 1930s.
The (limited) statistics available are therefore quite negative, and let it predict a future with the Foschi sections: as a species, we are becoming less and less “intelligent”. These are not systematic scientific studies, and therefore similar conclusions must be taken “cum wheat salis”. But it is still a theme that deserves attention.
Do phones make us stupid?
Certainly it cannot be a question of a biological nature: our brain cannot be changed irreparably in such a short time, and some form of intoxication or environmental effect on a scale such vast is difficult to imaginable. More likely, if anything, that it is a cultural question. The turning point that emerges from the data seems to come around 2012, and coincides – the author of the financial Times article points out – with a change that took place almost everywhere in the relationship we have with information, and how this is mediated by our devices, smartphones, laptops, and so on.
In fact, that the use of the internet in itself has never been harmful to our cognitive skills: books can like us more than web pages, but research shows that digital tools, if used in the right way, represent a valid aid for learning and enhancement of memory, attention, problem solving and so on.
In 2012, however, an important change was set in the digital ecosystem: the end of the so -called Internet 2.0, in favor of the new internet, the mobile one, videos and apps, with their feeds. It is the year of the purchase of Instagram by Facebook, which has moved the use of web content from text to images and videos. A transformation consecrated by the rise of Tik Tok, which today sees most users – especially among the youngest – as passive users of the contents recommended by algorithms.
The four “fundamental damage” of the use of smartphones
Also on the internet, therefore, we don’t read anymore. We go from one video to another quickly, often paying just attention to what we look at, guided by the feeds of the apps and by an infinite string of content that fight to attract our attention. It is this passive attitude, according to the author of the article, the most probable responsible for the cognitive decline we are witnessing. Will it be true? Difficult to say, even if the idea seems to certainly plausible.
We will see if the test results will continue to confirm the current trend in the coming years. And if this were the case, one can only look at the new digital revolution in progress with a certain concern: the advance of the AI, which promise to lighten us further from everyday cognitive labors, with the risk of making us even more stupid, in the future, than we have not already become so far.