I'd say technology has changed the sort of intelligence that's important. I don't think it diminishes the overall amount, although that's very hard to measure. I would say that if kids are getting stupider, it might be because we're sabotaging the schools that are supposed to teach them.
toldailytopic: Has technology made our children less intelligent?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
- Start date
Fact is, by traditional measures, children today are much smarter than earlier generations:
IQ tests are updated periodically. For example, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), originally developed in 1949, was updated in 1974, in 1991, and again in 2003. The revised versions are standardized to 100 using new standardization samples. In ordinary use IQ tests are scored with respect to those standardization samples. The only way to compare the difficulty of two versions of a test is to conduct a study in which the same subjects take both versions. Doing so confirms IQ gains over time. The average rate of increase seems to be about three IQ points per decade in the US on tests such as the WISC. The increasing raw scores appear on every major test, in every age range and in every modern industrialized country although not necessarily at the same rate as in the US using the WISC. The increase has been continuous and roughly linear from the earliest days of testing to the present.[9] Though the effect is most associated with IQ increases, a similar effect has been found with increases of semantic and episodic memory.[3]
Ulric Neisser estimates that using the IQ values of today the average IQ of the US in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80. Neisser states that "Hardly any of them would have scored 'very superior,' but nearly one-quarter would have appeared to be 'deficient.'" He also writes that "Test scores are certainly going up all over the world, but whether intelligence itself has risen remains controversial."[9]
Flynn effect, Wikipedia
IQ tests are updated periodically. For example, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC), originally developed in 1949, was updated in 1974, in 1991, and again in 2003. The revised versions are standardized to 100 using new standardization samples. In ordinary use IQ tests are scored with respect to those standardization samples. The only way to compare the difficulty of two versions of a test is to conduct a study in which the same subjects take both versions. Doing so confirms IQ gains over time. The average rate of increase seems to be about three IQ points per decade in the US on tests such as the WISC. The increasing raw scores appear on every major test, in every age range and in every modern industrialized country although not necessarily at the same rate as in the US using the WISC. The increase has been continuous and roughly linear from the earliest days of testing to the present.[9] Though the effect is most associated with IQ increases, a similar effect has been found with increases of semantic and episodic memory.[3]
Ulric Neisser estimates that using the IQ values of today the average IQ of the US in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80. Neisser states that "Hardly any of them would have scored 'very superior,' but nearly one-quarter would have appeared to be 'deficient.'" He also writes that "Test scores are certainly going up all over the world, but whether intelligence itself has risen remains controversial."[9]
Flynn effect, Wikipedia
And the godless will call it evolution.
Only YE creationists believe in evolution working that fast (hyperevolution after the Flood, to explain away the problems of lack of space on the Ark)
I believe the majority of YE creationists still believe in God, although they have downgraded His abilities considerably.
Buzzword
New member
Has technology made our children less intelligent?
No, just older.lain:
Yep.
My 11 year-old nephew knows more about the world than I did at 15.
Technological innovation has shifted the type of intelligence desired by employers, which is and has always been the determining factor in education.
The whole education system is not designed to build creative, critical thinkers who are constantly taking in new information and sifting through it using finely tuned analytical skills.
The system is designed to create worker bees who might have a hobby or two outside the hive.
Thus we have older adults going through midlife crises when their status as worker bee finally becomes obvious, younger adults refusing to become worker bees and thus being accused of letting the country go down the toilet, teens dropping like flies under the pressure to have their entire lives planned out by age 16 (at the extreme latest), and children already hating school because they know what's coming.
NONE of this is the direct result of technological growth.
It is the result of a flawed system finally being exposed for what it is, and (thanks to technology) that exposure being made available to millions who don't want to end up like their parents.
