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Traditional IQ indicators show signs of decline among young people, but experts point out that old tests measure only part of human intelligence in a world transformed by technology, new professional skills, and profound changes in the way of learning, working, and relating.
The decline in some average cognitive test results has reignited the debate about intelligence among young people, but the idea that Generation Z is simply “dumber” does not find sufficient support in the available studies.
What the research indicates, more specifically, is that part of the traditional IQ indicators has stopped growing at the pace observed throughout the 20th century and, in some countries, has started to decline.
Known as the reversal of the Flynn effect, the phenomenon describes the interruption or reversal of the historical trend of increasing intelligence test scores across generations.
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In 2018, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed data from Norwegian men born between 1962 and 1991 and identified progress until the 1975 cohort, followed by a decline in subsequent groups.
Conducted by Bernt Bratsberg and Ole Rogeberg, the research did not attribute the change to genetic factors, making any simple conclusion about a natural loss of intellectual capacity inappropriate.
On the contrary, the authors pointed out that the variations observed also appear within families, reinforcing the influence of environmental factors, such as education, cultural repertoire, and forms of exposure to cognitive stimuli.
Decline in IQ does not mean a general decline in intelligence
Turning a technical data point into a generational diagnosis is a hasty interpretation, especially when IQ tests evaluate only part of the capabilities associated with intellectual performance.
IQ tests measure certain skills, such as logical reasoning, memory, language, and standardized problem-solving, but they cannot capture the full complexity of human intelligence in real contexts.
This limitation matters because classical cognitive assessment instruments were created in another historical moment, when school, work, communication, and access to information operated very differently.
Associated with Alfred Binet and Théodore Simon, the test created in the early 20th century aimed to evaluate intellectual performance in specific tasks, not to summarize all of a person’s competencies into a definitive number.
Over the decades, IQ has gained importance in schools, selection processes, and academic research, becoming an important reference for measuring certain cognitive abilities.
Even so, the evolution of work and education has shown that human performance involves broader skills, including communication, adaptation, creativity, self-control, and cooperation ability.
Therefore, the discussion about Generation Z requires caution, as young people born in a digital environment may perform lower in certain traditional tasks and develop competencies in other areas.
Among these skills are network navigation, content creation, interface reading, remote collaboration, and quick response to changes, capabilities that are underrepresented in classic evaluation models.
Job market values skills beyond IQ
The transformation of the job market helps explain why comparisons between generations cannot rely solely on standardized tests or isolated indicators.
In the Future of Jobs Report 2025, the World Economic Forum points out that analytical thinking remains the most demanded core skill by employers, considered essential by seven out of ten companies surveyed.
In addition to this point, the same survey places resilience, flexibility, agility, leadership, and social influence among the main competencies valued in the contemporary professional environment.
These skills do not replace technical knowledge but indicate that companies seek professionals capable of interpreting problems, handling pressure, collaborating, and continuously learning in environments affected by automation and artificial intelligence.
With this scenario, a potential drop in average IQ scores cannot be automatically interpreted as an absolute impoverishment of human capacity.
In practice, organizations have started to combine technical and behavioral criteria to evaluate performance, especially in roles that require quick adaptation and decision-making in uncertain contexts.
Artificial intelligence also changes the relative weight of certain competencies, as calculations, searches, summaries, and repetitive tasks can be performed by automated systems in a matter of seconds.
Meanwhile, judgment, applied creativity, negotiation, empathy, and context reading remain dependent on human capabilities that are difficult to standardize and even more difficult to fully replace.
Generation Z grew up connected and changed the way of learning
Growing up in an environment of constant access to information, Generation Z developed learning methods different from those observed in previous periods.
Even before entering the job market, many young people already produce videos, manage profiles, participate in digital communities, learn through online platforms, and interact with people from different countries.
Although these experiences do not directly appear in a traditional IQ test, they can develop communication repertoires, audience awareness, and visual adaptation skills.
Included in this set are responses to feedback, mastery of digital languages, and familiarity with tools used in sectors such as technology, marketing, education, games, and the creative economy.
This diagnosis, however, does not eliminate legitimate concerns about reading, concentration, and academic performance, especially when associated with habit changes, excessive screen time, and educational inequalities.
The decline in indicators related to formal learning deserves the attention of families, schools, and public managers, without this being converted into a simplistic label against an entire generation.
The central point is to avoid an automatic conclusion, as a generation may show weaknesses in certain metrics and demonstrate strength in skills that were undervalued when classic tests were created.
In this sense, the debate gains quality when it recognizes that different environments develop different skills, without turning each performance variation into a definitive sign of intellectual advancement or decline.
Education needs to measure more than memorization
In education, the dilemma is repeated directly, because evaluating only standardized responses may overlook talents related to collaboration, creativity, and practical problem-solving.
Also less visible are skills such as leadership, spatial thinking, artistic expression, and emotional intelligence, which influence academic and professional paths even when they do not appear in traditional tests.
This does not mean abandoning academic metrics, as reading, writing, mathematical reasoning, and concentration remain essential for any consistent educational path.
The challenge is to combine these bases with instruments capable of recognizing other dimensions of human development, without reducing all training to numerical indices.
When the public debate reduces the issue to “dumber young people,” the opportunity to accurately discuss what has really changed in the way of learning and working is lost.
There are warning signs in cognitive indicators, but there is also evidence that work has come to require broader skills than those captured by tests created for another era.
More than comparing generations by a single number, the more precise debate involves knowing whether schools, companies, and families are prepared to balance traditional cognitive skills with human competencies valued by the digital economy.
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