Studies prove it: People are getting dumber

[ABX]

Exactly!  You said it much better than I could have.

I stole it

[240B]

It's computers, smart phones, technology in general.
Nobody has to remember anything anymore. Nobody has to figure out anything anymore.
Just Google it.
No need to worry about a foreign language. Google translate it.
No need to spell. Spellchecker will take care of it.

What were the years of the Civil War?
Give me a second, he says, reaching for his smart phone.

[Free Vulcan]

The ecological fallacy occurs when you make conclusions about individuals based only on analyses of group data. For instance, assume that you measured the math scores of a particular classroom and found that they had the highest average score in the district. Later (probably at the mall) you run into one of the kids from that class and you think to yourself "she must be a math whiz." Aha! Fallacy! Just because she comes from the class with the highest average doesn't mean that she is automatically a high-scorer in math. She could be the lowest math scorer in a class that otherwise consists of math geniuses!

Sounds like the inverse of the fallacy they use to 'confirm' global warming. Anything that doesn't conform to the averages are extremes driven by AGW.

[Sanguine]

It's computers, smart phones, technology in general.
Nobody has to remember anything anymore. Nobody has to figure out anything anymore.
Just Google it.
No need to worry about a foreign language. Google translate it.
No need to spell. Spellchecker will take care of it.

What were the years of the Civil War?
Give me a second, he says, reaching for his smart phone.

There may be another reason for that:

How Fast Is Knowledge Doubling?

The total amount of information in the world is increasing. Simple enough concept to grasp, right?  Obviously, we would then conclude that human knowledge is increasing as well. (*Enter your own joke if you care to do so.) I don’t think you need a degree in rocket science to reason that one out either. However, have you truly considered what the rate of increase really is on each of these and how the future will look concerning analytics and technology?

I was watching a program not too long ago and the host said something that really caught my attention. He said that human knowledge is doubling every 13 months. That’s when I lifted my head out of the bowl of SpaghettiO’s and started really paying attention to what he was saying.

From an article on Industry Tap written by David Schilling, the host went on to say that not only is human knowledge, on average, doubling every 13 months, we are quickly on our way, with the help of the Internet, to the doubling of knowledge every 12 hours.  To put it into context, in 1900 human knowledge doubled approximately every 100 years. By the end of 1945, the rate was every 25 years. The “Knowledge Doubling Curve”, as it’s commonly known, was created by Buckminster Fuller in 1982. If you want to take this even further down the preverbal road, you combine this with Ray Kurzweil’s (Head of Google Artificial Intelligence) “singularity” theory and Google’s Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen’s ideas which are discussed in their book, “The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business” and you have some serious changes to technology, human intelligence and business coming down the pike whether you like it or not....

https://lodestarsolutions.com/keeping-up-with-the-surge-of-information-and-human-knowledge/

Or, Kurzweil's take on it: 

The Law of Accelerating Returns
March 7, 2001 by Ray Kurzweil

An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate). The “returns,” such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to The Singularity — technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history. The implications include the merger of biological and nonbiological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.

You will get $40 trillion just by reading this essay and understanding what it says. For complete details, see below. (It’s true that authors will do just about anything to keep your attention, but I’m serious about this statement. Until I return to a further explanation, however, do read the first sentence of this paragraph carefully.)

Now back to the future: it’s widely misunderstood. Our forebears expected the future to be pretty much like their present, which had been pretty much like their past. Although exponential trends did exist a thousand years ago, they were at that very early stage where an exponential trend is so flat that it looks like no trend at all. (emphasis mine)  So their lack of expectations was largely fulfilled. Today, in accordance with the common wisdom, everyone expects continuous technological progress and the social repercussions that follow. But the future will be far more surprising than most observers realize: few have truly internalized the implications of the fact that the rate of change itself is accelerating.

The Intuitive Linear View versus the Historical Exponential View...

https://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

[Victoria33]

It's computers, smart phones, technology in general.
Nobody has to remember anything anymore. Nobody has to figure out anything anymore.
Just Google it.
No need to worry about a foreign language. Google translate it.
No need to spell. Spellchecker will take care of it. What were the years of the Civil War?
Give me a second, he says, reaching for his smart phone.

@240B

YES

[rustynail]

Ignorance is bliss.

[Free Vulcan]

It's computers, smart phones, technology in general.
Nobody has to remember anything anymore. Nobody has to figure out anything anymore.
Just Google it.
No need to worry about a foreign language. Google translate it.
No need to spell. Spellchecker will take care of it.

What were the years of the Civil War?
Give me a second, he says, reaching for his smart phone.

I see this with young people I'm around. They aren't stupid, just intellectually lazy.

That said, I do think what they call 'Gen Z' has promise.

[Fishrrman]

Intro to the film "Idiocracy" (gonna watch it tonight):

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

Will life imitate art one more time?

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

Studies prove it: People are getting dumber

Would that include the people administering the studies?