Is Generation Z Experiencing Cognitive Decline?

For nearly a century, humanity got smarter. Every decade, the average IQ score of the world’s population rose consistently. Children grew taller, healthier, and seemingly more cognitively capable than the generation before them. This phenomenon even had a name: the Flynn Effect, after the philosopher and intelligence researcher James Flynn. For ninety years, he documented an ever-ascending curve, and we never imagined a time when that curve would decline. It turns out, that time is now.

Bratsberg and Rogeberg (2018) analysed cognitive data from three decades of Norwegian male births and found that the upward trend in IQ had indeed reversed. This reflects environmental factors, not the population’s genetic makeup. The finding was shocking because it demonstrated differences in intelligence scores between siblings from the same families, meaning the cause is not hereditary.

Compulsory military service IQ tests from Finland, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands, and Australia all show a decline that began in the mid-1990s. A study from Northwestern University analysing cognitive data from nearly 400,000 American adults between 2006 and the mid-2010s further reinforces this downward IQ trend. Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, appears to be the first generation to find itself entirely on the declining side of the IQ curve, with an estimated drop of between two and five points compared to the generation above them.

Scientists call this phenomenon the Reverse Flynn Effect. Over the last two decades, children’s cognitive development in most developed countries has stagnated and even regressed in many domains, including literacy, numeracy, attention, and higher-order thinking skills. This is despite increased school attendance rates and expanded public investment (Horvath, 2026). Data from large-scale international assessments such as PISA, TIMSS, and PIRLS, involving millions of students over several decades, collectively point to the same conclusion: intense screen exposure in classrooms does not broadly improve learning outcomes (Horvath, 2026).

On the other hand, psychological factors have also been proven to play a significant role. A longitudinal study spanning nearly three decades with 292 participants found that higher perceived stress levels in middle age were significantly impactful (Christensen et al., 2023). Generation Z grew up amidst academic pressure, the climate crisis, economic uncertainty, and a flood of digital stimuli from an early age. This generation is the first in history to simultaneously experience chronic stress and a degraded cognitive environment during their brain’s formative years.

So how do these factors affect the brains of Generation Z? The answer lies in a concept called cognitive offloading, which is the act of delegating cognitive tasks to external resources to reduce mental burden (Risko & Gilbert, 2016).

Fundamentally, cognitive offloading is the human brain’s natural response to the limitations of working memory, which is inherently limited in both capacity and duration (Jones, 2025). Actions like saving a phone number to a mobile contact list, making a shopping list, or storing a schedule in a calendar app are all forms of healthy and adaptive cognitive offloading. However, it becomes far more serious when this practice becomes a permanent substitute for the thinking process itself. The presence of AI that continuously takes over cognitive tasks without giving individuals room to develop their own internal strategies leads not to a strengthening of thinking ability, but to a gradual erosion of cognitive capacity (Chirayath et al., 2025). This is what is now happening on a massive scale to Generation Z. They grew up in a digital ecosystem that, from an early age, answered every question, completed every task, and filled every cognitive void instantly, before the brain had a chance to try.

It is commonly found that university students who rely on Generative AI (GAI) to complete assignments and daily learning activities potentially experience reduced engagement in cognitive processes, particularly in working memory (Mahmud et al., 2026). Many individuals lose the opportunity to develop independent strategies, and over time, this dependence erodes psychological immunity, leaving a person unprepared to face pressure in any context without technological assistance (Chirayath et al., 2025). In other words, Generation Z is not becoming stupider. They are being unconsciously shaped not to need to think.

Although the data on declining cognitive scores for Gen Z is hard to ignore, I hold a different viewpoint and opinion. Reflecting on the philosopher Socrates, who once opposed the tradition of writing on the grounds that the written word would weaken human memory, the brain would no longer be forced to store knowledge independently. The concern was reasonable for his time. Yet, it is proven that humans did not become more foolish after inventing writing. Humans simply became different in their way of thinking, and from that difference, a far more complex civilisation was born. Therefore, I do not rule out the possibility that part of what is happening to Gen Z is a similar process: rewiring, a brain learning to operate in an ecosystem that has never existed before.

Writing did not erase the ability to think; it expanded human capacity. Cognitive offloading can essentially work in the same way, as long as the user remains in control. The issue is not the technology, but the awareness in using it. It is about Gen Z consciously choosing when to delegate a task to technology and when to think for themselves. What needs to be guarded against is not the tool, but the loss of that choice.