Is Gen Z Dumb?

It's common that people who are older and have more experience look at young people as clueless. It's always been that way, because 60 years of learning about the world will beat twenty years of learning on average. For an objective measurement, national IQ scores are starting to fall. But it's not the kids' fault- it's their environment, meaning technology, education, and the broader culture that results. Yeah, that means it's our fault.

You can find hundreds of ways we have let young people down. People who were raised by the TV end up knowing little about parenting their own kids. Fractured media choices lead to the option of ignoring what's going on the real world. Helicopter parents shield children from life's hard lessons. Participation trophies lead to an inflated sense of self. Fractured families lead to a loss of generational knowledge. And more than anything else, income equality leads to people who have to work too hard to even feed their children, much less spend time with them. Of course, we would never want to go back to the days of beating kids into compliance. I believe that instilling a lifetime love of learning into very young children is crucial, and that takes a lot of effort. But it pays off.