Young losing their IQ advantage over old ( the Times )

No wonder the country is in the state it is.

Boredom is almost eradicated. There are young people now who have never known what it’s like to sit in a car for a two hour journey with absolutely nothing to do only look out the window and play with the window winder or push down lock. And if you didn’t go out on a Saturday night you were stuck in the living room with your parents and granny watching Kenny live followed by a decade or two of the rosary . No wonder there was even mid size villages with night clubs back in those days.

We need boredom back. Genuine mind numbing boredom sparks many great things. The phone has robbed us of boredom.
But then Boredom probably spawned the phone so it would just re-emerge again?

But the whole point of the story is IQ? It has nothing to do with people in the workforce or ability to work in a large organization. Without high IQ you dont get the advancements that we take for granted today, social skills dont get you microchips or the internet or to space.

Your argument might as well be that, you could have a person with great social skills but doesnt have two legs so couldnt play hop scotch. The very essence of the point they are making is that IQ hasnt advanced, like it has for every other generation.

It is without doubt that thinking and the value of thought is deteriorating. I would suggest that even those in their 40's and 50's who learned to think for themselves are regressing as they "google it" instead of thinking about it. On the flip side, a lot af people would be advised to "google it" instead of taking everything they encounter on whatsapp/facebook/X/tiktok etc at face value. Its not really the information age that is dumbing people down, its the way we use it.

IQ is a measurement of ones reasoning ability, if you never have to reason anything because its all handed to you on a plate then you are not going to have much of an IQ.

What advancements have their been from creativity?

Again, the very purpose of the article is to point out how IQ levels are no longer increasing, your whataboutery doesnt change that I am afraid.

The only person to bring in Mensa was you. Did you not make the grade perhaps…

"Generation born in 1980s has made no advance in cognitive ability while over-65s are smarter than before

The gap in brain performance between the young and old is closing, in part because the IQ gains once seen in each new generation appear to have stalled, a study suggests ( new research, by Professor Stephen Badham of Nottingham Trent University )."

The reason it doesn't appear to follow is that it doesn't follow and that the article doesn't imply it does. Perhaps a good example of poor reasoning skills?

Todays over-65s are smarter than the last generations over-65s.

Todays 30-40 year olds are not smarter than the last generations.

Ergo the gap between over-65s and 30-40 year olds is less than it was previously.

Why must there be a ceiling on how smart humans can become?

the real issue is that there are people thick enough to buy into the above

could not agree more, you see kids at such a young age with ipads and phones, its utterly mad. My kids are at the 20 mark , some older, we used to control the time they'd have on devices.

Not sure its necessarily IQ level per sa, partly parents fault not fostering talent's that end up being wasted….

I put it down to a lack of effort being put into getting the ride of a Saturday night.

Lads used to have their wits about them. Women definitely had to have their wits about them.

Now they just get messed up on cocaine, have a flirt over snapchat, and then have a fumble down an alleyway.

No conversation, no thinking, no effort required. That's where they're falling down.

Yes seeing the actual text it quite clear that the headline misrepresents the actual study in a fundamental way. Looks like a sort of culture wars kids are not what they used to be puff piece.

Regardless of whether IQ is a good metric of intelligence, it's quite evident that younger generations aren't quite a clued in as the ones who went before them. I find, you have to spoon-fed them in order to get something done or a project complete. If it strays anywhere outside of anything they do repetitively day to day there is zero initiative or an ability to work out a solution. Its lift the phone and ask how to get round the issue or just stop completely.

There's more evidence of this dumbing down that just IQ tests

I worked in the public libraries, way back in the early 80s a family and their neighbours from a certain road in Terenure were all members of Mensa, staff were told the 3 month old baby was too. Almost entire end of the road was filled with members of Mensa, all of whom who could circumvent borrowing limitation by decree of City Librarian who was a friend of the head bottkewadher in Mensa, who lived on that road. I’m sure there were some very intelligent people, but it was a complete farce the way the babe in arms was deemed to have an IQ of 150+.

Interestingly, Brendan O’Carroll is a card carrying member of Mensa.

No big tech industry want employees with initiative, they want highly technically skilled people who can follow procedures to the absolute letter. If an employee deviates in the slightest way then an exception procedure is initiated and this brings with it huge employee stress.

So perfectionism of a certain type is an absolute necessity for a big tech employee - if you haven't got it you will be out the door in short measure.

Think this sums up your point.

Phone calls are incredibly inefficient, I work 90% in emails for communications. It’s easy to prove what was said and far faster than talking on the phone. Most people working do this regardless of their generation.