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American IQ scores have rapidly dropped, proving the 'Reverse Flynn effect'

(www.popularmechanics.com)
256 points hirundo | 1 comments | 10 Apr 23 13:00 UTC | HN request time: 0.326s | source
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iamerroragent ◴[10 Apr 23 13:20 UTC] No.35511931[source]▶
They say scores in spatial reasoning went up while analogies, vocabulary, and numerical reasoning declined.

Hmmm I wonder if an increase use of videogames paired with a decrease in the amount of time parents can spend communicating with their children might be related.

Note that over the last 30 years it's vastly transitioned from one parent staying home raising children to both parents working.

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elhudy ◴[10 Apr 23 22:15 UTC] No.35518043[source]▶
Humans are incredibly adaptive. Is there much reason to have an expansive vocabulary nowadays? We are taught to speak and write as concisely and understandably as possible. We can look up the definition of any word at our fingertips. "[I do not] carry such information in my mind since it is readily available in books." - Einstein.

Maybe these tests are declining because they are measuring skills that are decreasingly relevant? I'm not certain I believe this myself but it's an interesting thought.

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burnished ◴[10 Apr 23 22:24 UTC] No.35518120[source]▶
Your vocabulary is tied to your expressive power and your ability to form coherent and compelling arguments. I'd argue that without an expansive vocabulary you would struggle to write with precision let alone brevity.

Not that its wrong to question, I just think you'd need to do more work supporting the idea that language skills are less important today for some reason.

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1. jjk166 ◴[11 Apr 23 16:22 UTC] No.35527377[source]▶
Using a rare word with a marginally different meaning to convey an idea more precisely and concisely depends on the person on the other end of the conversation knowing that word and the marginal difference in meaning it conveys. The moment you can't trust people to distinguish between two synonyms, one of them becomes useless. As we communicate with wider groups whom we have less familiarity with, the amount you can trust nuance to be conveyed decreases. And logically as already rare words become more rarely used, the likelihood that your audience is familiar with them further decreases.

Someone who focuses on clearly explaining thoughts using small numbers of commonly understood words will be much better at forming coherent and compelling arguments than someone who instead invests the same resources in learning a vast but useless vocabulary.