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Declining intelligence/ Are adults forgetting how to read?

2025-01-03 07:26:00, Sociale CNA

Are you smarter than a ten year old? New data shows that a shocking proportion of adults in rich countries may not be, writes The Economist.

According to a recent study published by the OECD, around a fifth of people aged 16 to 65 do not achieve better results in maths and reading tests than would be expected of a pupil leaving primary school. Worse still, adults in many countries have become less educated over the past ten years.

The OECD's "Adult Skills Survey" is conducted only once a decade. Researchers asked 160,000 adults in 31 states and territories to take several short tests in math, literacy and problem solving.

The aim was to assess whether they are capable of holding down a job, participating in civic life and generally thriving in society. The most basic tasks measured whether people could understand the warnings on the back of an aspirin packet, or figure out how much wallpaper was needed to cover a room. At more advanced levels, it looked at how well people could draw sound conclusions from analyzes and graphs shown in, for example, magazines.

Finland achieved the highest results: it received the highest average grade in all three areas. People in the Netherlands, Norway and Japan also achieved a better than average level in all disciplines. England have risen in the rankings in the ten years since the test was last held, thanks to an increase in youth skills. In contrast, America's scores are falling.

Declining intelligence/ Are adults forgetting how to read?

Similarly, Chile, Italy, Poland and Portugal have a high percentage of people who scored below the average. Almost half of Chileans scored quite poorly in both math and reading, compared to just 8% of Japanese. The overall results show a decline in initial skills.

For almost every country that has increased its score significantly over the past ten years, there is another that has seen its score decline. In terms of literacy, countries with declining scores outnumber those that have made progress. This is happening despite more people graduating from high school and more getting degrees. Less able people are becoming more and more disabled. In many countries, the gap between the most skilled and the least skilled is widening. One explanation is increased immigration. Non-natives usually do worse in language tests.

An aging population is another reason: data show that numeracy and literacy skills peak around age 30 or a little later. But even when accounting for these changes, literacy scores in many states are falling. Andreas Schleicher, head of education and skills at the OECD, says adults are now practicing reading long and complex texts less than they used to. We can also blame TikTok for this.

Declining intelligence/ Are adults forgetting how to read?

The OECD study is not the only one to show that improvement in cognitive skills has stalled. Throughout the 20th century, psychometrists noticed that the level of intelligence was steadily increasing, as part of a phenomenon called the "Flynn effect". Recently, a stagnation or decline has been observed in some states.

The reason for this has been hotly debated. What no one doubts is that people with resourceful brains have an easier time avoiding life's major adversities and are more likely to enjoy a better life. This is confirmed by the surveys conducted in addition to the OECD evidence.

People who scored higher on the test earned 75% higher salaries than those who scored lower. And it seems that the payoffs of being good at math and literacy aren't just financial. Those people who achieved better results were generally happier and enjoyed better health.

Whereas people who scored worse were more suspicious of others and more likely to feel disconnected from politics. You don't need to be incredibly smart to understand that this could lead to trouble in the future./Monitor