Across high-income countries, humans' ability to reason and solve problems appears to have peaked in the early 2010s and declined since <https://www.ft.com/content/a8016c64-63b7-458b-a371-e0e1c54a13fc>. Despite no changes in fundamental brain biology, test scores for both teenagers and adults show deteriorating performance in reading, mathematics and science. In an eye-opening statistic, 25% of adults in high-income countries now struggle to "use mathematical reasoning when reviewing statements" -- rising to 35% in the US.
This cognitive decline coincides with a fundamental shift in our relationship with information. Americans reading books has fallen below 50%, while difficulty thinking and concentrating among 18-year-olds has climbed sharply since the mid-2010s. The timing points to our changing digital habits: a transition from finite web pages to infinite feeds, from active browsing to passive consumption, and from focused attention to constant context-switching. Research shows that intentional use of digital technologies can be beneficial, but the passive consumption dominating recent years impairs verbal processing, attention, working memory and self-regulation. http://science.slashdot.org/story/25/03/17/0954252/have-humans-passed-peak-brain-power
