This data is not beautiful. What’s the cause? Seems odd, affecting both students and adults, so it’s like knowledge decay as well as poorer uptake of knowledge. Social media and device usage?
this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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also colours are mismatched, green for science turns into literacy, which would correlate with reading, which was yellow. Orange math turns into yellow numeracy, which etc.
Not discounting knowledge decay, but fwiw it could be interpreted as the poorly-scoring teenagers who become adults lowering the average, which builds up year by year as their portion of adults steadily increases and the higher-scoring adults die off, rather than the individual adults scoring lower every year. Could totally be existing adults continuing to score lower as years pass, though.
Haven't looked into the sources, just adding my two cents on the graphic.
That doesn't seem like it would be that big an effect. But, perhaps. I know that there have been recent studies about devices used for teaching being poorer. Perhaps that's the problem all round.
I've also seen studies that show our knowledge is now different too. Previously we might remember how to figure something out. Or recall things like phone numbers. Now we recall where that data is available or where we found it. I think there was more available things recalled in the past but more locations now.
We IS mORE DuMmER nOW
Those drops show up right about the time that kids started getting smart phones and tablets. Correlation isn't causation. But it gets my vote.
Might be affected by changing culture around tests, most ppl I know who still take them regularly barely care abt them unless they affect a grade in school
Going to be interesting to see the long term effects of COVID on things like this.
Maybe interesting is the wrong word.
Look up lost boys generation. I think it's a big part of why we are like we are now. A generation of uneducated men lashing out