Is it true that as a species, we’re becoming dumber? I was recently viewing a YouTube video that makes this exact claim. At least for the Gen Z and GenA gnerations/(Whoever they are.). I found the video compelling but wanted to know if this content creator was the only one who had noticed this feature in upcoming generations. No, she was not. When I searched YouTube, there were at least a dozen other videos about becoming dumber, or stupid. What’s this all about?

It seems to be a conflation of many things, including technology. According to the video, and I think I agree, people are forced to learn anything anymore. We can just look something up if we don’t know and provide an answer we don’t completely understand. Or understand at all. This has to do with how our education system works (in the U.S.). I do know what it’s like to have to actually remember someone’s telephone number (the important people, of course). Today, I can barely recall my own number.

Since the federal government became heavily involved in our children’s education, the teachers figured out how to beat the system: Teach to the test. Higher scores on required testing mean more funding for schools which translates to more money for the teachers themselves. Well, it’s logical isn’t it? Whenever the government becomes involved in trying to resolve a problem of the citizenry of any kind, there’s always going to be some that figure a way to scam the system (Just look at the scams being discovered now in a couple of Blue states.).

If you’re good at mathematics, but are unfamiliar with the Pythagorean theorem, or get your science from Bill Nye the Science Guy, then you too are getting dumber. And that’s because we’ve all been conditioned this way. Yes, even we old folks (before these current generations of stupid.). I think if we look back, we could possibly see this in every generation. At least thsosein the 20th century. Life, overall, became easier and easier. My grandparents, with one exception, were all born in the 1890’s. So, life was harder for them and of course, their parents.

My great-grandparents would be shocked at not only how really easy life has become in the 21st century, but how we’ve mostly wasted the opportunity we’ve been given to become greater than any other previous generation, and continuing that advancement with the latest generation.

Instead, we’re devolving. Think about those tasks your parents took for granted that today, we just do ‘t even consider performing any longer. Or their parents. In a couple of generations at this rate, the film Idiocracy will become a reality.