People born between 1997 and 2010, commonly known as Generation Z (Gen Z), are “less cognitively capable” than other generations, a recent study suggested.
Findings led by neuroscientist and educator Jared Cooney Horvath revealed that Gen Z exhibited lower intelligence levels due to an over-reliance on technology.
Addressing the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation earlier in January, Mr Horvath stated that weak attention span, frail problem-solving ability, and poor reading and mathematical skills are limitations experienced by Gen Zs.
“A sad fact our generation has to face is that our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age. Every generation has outperformed their parents until Gen Z,” Mr Horvath told the New York Post.
He added, “Most of these young people are overconfident about how smart they are. The smarter people think they are, the dumber they actually are.”
Scoring lower academic grades than the Millennials, the preceding age group, Mr Horvath stated that teenagers spend excessive hours on screen devices rather than engaging in deep, face-to-face interactions.
“More than half of the time a teenager is awake, half of it is spent staring at a screen. Humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans and from deep study, not flipping through screens for bullet point summaries,” Mr Horvath said.
“What do kids do on computers? They skim. So rather than determining what we want our children to do and gearing education towards that, we are redefining education to better suit the tool. That is not progress; that is surrender,” he noted.
Mr Horvath said the underperformance has been observed in no fewer than 80 countries, as academic excellence has reduced, resulting from the unregulated adoption of digital technology in classrooms.
“The answer appears to be the tools we are using within schools to drive that learning. If you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly,” the neuroscientist stated.
“Across 80 countries, if you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly,” he said.
The study noted that the arbitrary use of technological devices like phones, tablets, and laptops during real-time studying has turned students into skimmers.
As a remedy, Mr Horvath said that government authorities worldwide should formulate new policies to give the forthcoming generation of kids, often called Generation Alpha, an opportunity to use and better maximise their brains
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