“It’s Really Creepy”: 59 Times Someone’s Intelligence Was Impressive And Freaky At The Same Time

We had much to celebrate in the 1980s, when a New Zealand intelligence researcher revealed that humanity was getting smarter. James R. Flynn’s research found that there had been a consistent rise in IQ test scores across the world throughout the 20th century.

The phenomenon became known as the Flynn Effect. Some credited better nutrition, education, and healthcare for the boost in our collective brainpower. Whatever it was, it was working and we were clearly doing something right. 

Sadly, the celebration would be short-lived... Just ten years later, it emerged that IQ scores were declining in developed countries around the world. Flynn himself noted that teenagers in the U.K. tested lower in the 2000s than their 1980s counterparts.

But years earlier, Norwegian experts had already sounded the alarm. "Because of its compulsory military service, the country had amassed a massive database of cognitive testing—covering more than 730,000 young men from 1962 to today," explains Cezary Pietrasik, co-owner of Synerise, an AI company that specializes in human behavior prediction. "What researchers found was stunning: IQ scores peaked among those born around 1975 and have been declining since. The average drop is about 7 points per generation."

"The world is dumber, and we all know it," wrote Lane Brown for New York magazine in 2025. "Lately, it feels like that culture-wide upgrade to our mental operating systems has been rolled back to an older and buggier version."

So what is going on that's causing this continued dip in intelligence? Some say it's because we're depending on AI to do the jobs our brains once handled. Others blame social media and say we're glued to our screens instead of stuck in good books. Then there are those who believe that COVID-19 played a part.

But not everyone believes that the world is getting dumber and dumber. Some experts argue that we shouldn't use traditional IQ scores to measure collective intelligence. One of them is Dr Philip Njemanze, a neurologist and Chairman of the International Institutes of Advanced Research and Training Centre at Chidicon Medical Centre in Nigeria.

Njemanze says that older IQ tests were not designed to measure things like digital navigation, rapid visual processing, multitasking across screens, and filtering large amounts of online information.

"General intelligence, in simple terms, is the brain’s overall ability to reason, solve problems, and adapt to new situations," he explains, adding that, “We may not be witnessing a loss of intelligence, but rather a shift in the type of cognitive skills being developed in a digital environment."

Pietrasik, however, isn't convinced. He says even if we don't consider the IQ decline, we're still facing a situation where there is an increase in functional illiteracy. He defines this as the "inability to perform basic reading and math tasks necessary for everyday life."

The expert backs up his warning with some sobering stats from the U.K. "1 in 10 people couldn’t identify the better deal between a 10% discount and a £30 discount on a £250 television (the latter saves more money, but sounds less appealing to the innumerate)," Pietrasik writes. "In the EU, up to 40% of adults in countries like Romania and Portugal are considered functionally illiterate. Even in high-performing Sweden, that number is still 8%."

Things aren't much better across the pond in the United States, he says.

"Roughly 45 million Americans read below a fifth-grade level," reveals the expert. "And in 2018, a Pew Research study found that only 26% of Americans could reliably distinguish fact from opinion in written text. Among 15-year-olds globally, that number drops to just 14%."

In his view, the dumbing down of the global population has less to do with failing education systems or student laziness and more to do with what's deemed 'normal' by society.

"It’s about a culture in which intellectual laziness is not only tolerated but increasingly rewarded," he warns. "When celebrity status trumps expertise, when emotional outrage outweighs rational discourse, and when the loudest voice wins over the most informed—what hope is there for cognitive resilience?"

What do you think? Are we getting dumber by the day or are we right where we're meant to be? Let us know in the comments below...