Today’s schoolchildren are the dumbest generation in modern history (study)

Recently, social media and the press have been actively discussing the claim that today's schoolchildren and teenagers are “the dumbest generation in modern history.” Such bold assertions did not arise out of nowhere: they are based on the findings of international studies that have recorded a record decline in academic performance. However, scientists and neurobiologists note that this is not a biological defect of the brain, but the result of fundamental changes in education, the proliferation of digital devices, and the overuse of “cognitive offloading.”

1. PISA 2025 Results: Record Decline in Literacy

The PISA 2025 study, which covered more than 760,000 15-year-olds from 91 countries, recorded the lowest average scores in the history of the assessment:

• Reading crisis: Over the past 10 years, the average reading literacy score in OECD countries has fallen by 28 points, equivalent to the loss of approximately a year and a half of schooling.
• Math slump: Math scores fell by 22 points (equivalent to the loss of about one year of schooling), with the decline accelerating sharply after 2018.
• One in five lacks basic skills: The proportion of 15-year-old students who fail to reach the basic proficiency level in all three subjects (reading, mathematics, and science) has risen to 20% (in 2022, the figure was 16%).
• Declining text comprehension skills: The proportion of students who engage in “careless reading” (quickly skimming a text and giving an incorrect answer) nearly doubled over seven years, from 6.6% to 11.4%. Only 46% of students said they verify the reliability of information sources.

2. The reversal of the Flynn effect and the abandonment of memorization

Throughout the 20th century, the world experienced the “Flynn effect”—a steady increase in average IQ scores of 3 points per decade. However, among generations born after the mid-1970s, this trend reversed in developed countries: IQ scores began to decline steadily.

Chronologically, this coincided with education reforms in Western countries: schools began broadly abandoning “rote memorization” (rote memorization) and fact-based foundations in favor of “learning how to learn” concepts and the notion of “why memorize something you can find online?”

As researcher E. D. Hirsch noted, an educational paradox emerged: the devaluation of foundational knowledge deprived children of the basis for critical thinking. Without a store of facts in their memory, students simply cannot formulate a query correctly or assess the reliability of the information they find.

3. Cognitive Offloading and AI: “Metacognitive Laziness”

The situation worsened with the spread of generative AI. On average, 45,5–46% of schoolchildren in OECD countries use neural networks every week to complete academic tasks (writing essays, summarizing texts, and solving problems).

In psychology, the transfer of thought processes to external tools is called cognitive offloading (cognitive offloading). Research reveals a dangerous side effect of neural networks:

1. The illusion of achievement: In an experiment involving schoolchildren, using an AI assistant (GPT-4) to solve practice math problems improved scores by 48%.
2. Decline in independent work: However, when the neural network was disabled, these same students scored 17% lower than those who studied using traditional methods without AI.

Scientists attribute this to the emergence of “metacognitive laziness” (metacognitive laziness): a person stops critically engaging with the material and making an intellectual effort. Instead of developing genuine knowledge, the brain remembers only “biological pointers”—information about where and how the neural network will do the thinking for them.

4. Neurobiology: Why the Brain Needs Memorized Knowledge

Neurobiological research (particularly studies by Barbara Oakley and her co-authors) shows why external devices cannot replace human memory. The human brain uses two learning systems:

• Declarative memory (conscious facts and concepts that rely on the hippocampus).
• Procedural memory (automatic skills, schemas, and intuition that rely on the basal ganglia).

Continual practice and memory retrieval transfer knowledge from the declarative system to the procedural system, forming robust schemas (schemata) and neural manifolds (neural manifolds)—compressed, highly efficient patterns of neuronal activity.

In addition, the brain learns through prediction errors (prediction errors) and dopamine surges when reality diverges from internal expectations. If a student has not memorized the basic rules and only multiplies numbers using a calculator or AI, they have no internal expectations—the brain does not register errors, and no development of neural networks takes place.

Calling Generation Z “the dumbest” is a scientific oversimplification. Their brains are biologically no different from those of previous generations, but the conditions in which they are growing up create an effect of “cognitive muscle atrophy.” Overprotective digital technologies, schools abandoning memory training, and the consumption of content in short clips cause the brain to operate in a state of constant offloading.

To reverse this trend, professionals and the education system need to restore the balance: use AI as a tutor to verify conclusions, while retaining mandatory memorization of fundamental facts and regular independent work without gadgets.