A leading neuroscientist, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath has told the United States Congress that his research found the Gen Z to be the first modern generation to perform worse academically than the one before it, raising concerns about the impact of technology and digital learning on young minds.
TopSociety reports that Generation Z – who are those born between the late 1990’s and 2010’s – have been found to have defied a long-standing trend of each generation outperforming the previous one in education and cognitive ability. IQ is not only inherent but also sharpened through solving problems, exercising the mental muscles, and not by simply finding the solution through a half-made prompt.
Appearing before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Dr. Horvath argued that over the past two decades, core aspects of cognitive development, including literacy, numeracy, attention, and higher‑order reasoning, have plateaued or reversed in many parts of the developed world.
He attributed this trend largely to the rapid and largely unregulated expansion of digital and educational technology in classrooms, which he said often weakens learning outcomes rather than strengthening them.
Disclosing that their performance was worse in areas like attention, memory, reading, problem solving and overall thinking skills, he believes that this is partly because the Gen Z grew up with constant screen time, spending many hours a day on phones, tablets and computers.
The scientist pointed out that too much time on screens can make it harder to focus and learn deeply. He recommends that schools should limit screen use and return to more traditional learning methods like the reading of books.
While sharing his findings with a congressional panel, Dr. Horvath asserted that Gen Z has reversed decades of steady academic progress.
According to him, “They’re the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized academic tests than the one before it.
“And to make matters worse, most of these young people are overconfident about how smart they are. The smarter people think they are, the dumber they actually are.
“They underperformed on basically every cognitive measure, from basic attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function and general IQ.”
