Westerners Are Getting Dumber, Study Says

[mortify ii]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3293846/

High fat diet, 28hr of tv on average per week, degenerate culture, and maybe even the fluoride in the water have contributed.

[Perigrina]

I suspect that reading huffpo contributes too.

[Credo in Deum]

I will be the first to admit I'm stupid.   Our education system sucks, our food is terrible, and there are distractions constantly.   My brother was looking at a National Geographic magazine and marveling at the things the ancient cultures used to build.  I just looked at him and said; "yeah, they didn't have TV or internet porn." 

[Ice_nine]

The human race has never had access to such a wide variety of stimuli. Technology is outpacing us. We are doomed.

[CrossCuT]

I will be the first to admit I'm stupid.   Our education system smells of elderberries, our food is terrible, and there are distractions constantly.   My brother was looking at a National Geographic magazine and marveling at the things the ancient cultures used to build.  I just looked at him and said; "yeah, they didn't have TV or internet porn." 

 

I agree. Im stupid as well. I only know half of what I think I do and not nearly enough of half of what other people want to know. Im so dumb I dont even know what I just said...or if it makes sense.

 

And the education system is poop.

Edited June 21, 2014 by CrossCuT

[NotreDame]

Reaction times are a dumb way to measure cognitive ability.  There's not going to be any good way to compare average IQ with past centuries, but we may be able to do it going forward.

 

If anything would affect modern IQ I think it would be diet, changes in mortality rates, and reproductive habits across the bell curve.  I remember when the movie Idiocracy came out I found it's premise absurd, but now, 10+ years later I'm wondering if it has merit. 

[Credo in Deum]

I'm sure morality has a huge role in it as well.  I personally believe sin clouds our judgment and makes us prone to doing stupid stuff. 

[Ash Wednesday]

I'd believe it. If nothing else, people's attention spans are getting worse. Not the same as IQ, mind you, but if you aren't paying attention, you miss things. It used to not be a big deal to sit and read a book, or read the newspaper in the morning -- now you post an article of any notable length and people just respond with "tl;dr"

 

 

[Ash Wednesday]

 

If anything would affect modern IQ I think it would be diet, changes in mortality rates, and reproductive habits across the bell curve.  I remember when the movie Idiocracy came out I found it's premise absurd, but now, 10+ years later I'm wondering if it has merit. 

 

I love Idiocracy, not gonna lie. 

 

[Socrates]

I blame teh interwebz.

[God the Father]

Reaction times are a dumb way to measure cognitive ability.  There's not going to be any good way to compare average IQ with past centuries, but we may be able to do it going forward.

 

If anything would affect modern IQ I think it would be diet, changes in mortality rates, and reproductive habits across the bell curve.  I remember when the movie Idiocracy came out I found it's premise absurd, but now, 10+ years later I'm wondering if it has merit. 

 

That movie is Orwellian in its prescience.

[Catherine Therese]

Reaction times are a dumb way to measure cognitive ability.  

 

Agreed.

 

There is a pretty strong research base now to support a dual-processing understanding of cognition and the difference between executive function and lower order thinking. I know they exploit this stuff a lot in marketing, for example, where they attempt to appeal to a human's heuristic and emotive processing of sensory data instead of their rational, higher-order processing of abstract concepts. 

 

THEN there is the manner in which reflex/instinctual responses are processed by the nervous system... the message is processed locally, and does not actually travel to the brain.....

 

So there are two possibilities as far as I can see, one of which isn't even cognitive in nature, that could account for a fast reaction time before higher-order thinking even comes into the picture. And I'm pretty sure IQ pertains to the higher order thinking, right?

[4588686]

ur momz a topic

[chrysostom]

I'd believe it. If nothing else, people's attention spans are getting worse. Not the same as IQ, mind you, but if you aren't paying attention, you miss things. It used to not be a big deal to sit and read a book, or read the newspaper in the morning -- now you post an article of any notable length and people just respond with "tl;dr"

 

True, but then again, I think it's much easier to read something of any length on printed paper and not on the computer due to its impact on your eyes.

[Luigi]

To conflate two threads, and to illustrate a point, I raise the following question:

 

Is it possible that Westerners are getting dumber because dope-smoking is becoming more prevalent out West? Colorado, California, Oregon - they're all out west, aren't they?