(NewsNation) — An IQ researcher cites increased consumption of digital media and entertainment as well as less time spent reading and writing as likely factors behind falling IQ scores in the United States.
A 2023 study found that American IQs rose dramatically over the past century, but they now seem to be falling.
“It’s probably more linked to media use, moving away from reading, moving away from writing itself,” Professor Stefan Dombrowski, an IQ researcher at Rider University, said in a Tuesday interview on NewsNation’s “On Balance with Leland Vittert.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 8-to-10-year-olds now spend an average of 6 hours per day, 11-to-14-year-olds spend 9 hours, and 15-to-18-year-olds spend 7 1/2 hours engaged in activities that may be impacting cognitive abilities.
According to the study, IQ scores declined across three of four broad domains of intelligence between 2006 and 2018, reversing a trend of rising scores over the past century.
Dombrowski said two years of disrupted learning during COVID-19 lockdowns may have played a role as well.
The research, published in the journal Intelligence, found falling scores in areas including logic, vocabulary, visual and mathematical problem-solving and analogies like those on the old SAT exam. IQ scores dipped up to 2 points in those three categories over the 12 years.
Scores declined across age groups, education levels and genders, with the steepest drops among younger and less-educated test-takers. The only area showing an increase was spatial reasoning, which measures the analysis of 3D objects.
The findings add to research on the “Flynn effect,” intelligence researcher James Flynn’s observation of rising IQ scores across the 20th century. But researchers have detected a reversal starting around 2000, hypothesizing that screen time and technology are dumbing society down.
The U.S. ranks 31st in global education rankings, behind top countries like China, South Korea and Finland.
Average IQ scores in China are 104 compared to 97 in the U.S., a 7-point gap Dombrowski called “significant” though not solely determinant of success.
Dombrowski cautioned that IQ is just one measure, and factors like personality, emotional intelligence and culture likely influence achievement as well.
