Neuroscientist Jared Cooney Horvath said older generations “screwed up” giving students access to so much technology: “I genuinely hope Gen Z quickly figures that out and gets mad.”
I suspect that if Gen Z designed their own cognitive tests, their tests would determine that we older generations were less cognitively capable than them.
The reality is that every generation adapts in different ways to fit their own cognitive circumstances, and one generation’s metric is at best an imperfect match for another—“cognitive capacity” can’t be objectively measured.
I get what you’re saying, but this isn’t a dig at Gen Z. For as long as we’ve been testing, which is like 50 years I think, the new generation has outperformed the previous one and that’s a good thing.
Having this generation underperform means that we have failed them and we need to figure out exactly how we fucked up. The evidence is really strong that technology in the classroom is a significant contributor.
See also Goodhart’s law “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”, which may not be completely relevant here, but is likely a factor (probably a lesser one than the systematic underfunding and other political meddling in US schools).
I suspect that if Gen Z designed their own cognitive tests, their tests would determine that we older generations were less cognitively capable than them.
The reality is that every generation adapts in different ways to fit their own cognitive circumstances, and one generation’s metric is at best an imperfect match for another—“cognitive capacity” can’t be objectively measured.
I get what you’re saying, but this isn’t a dig at Gen Z. For as long as we’ve been testing, which is like 50 years I think, the new generation has outperformed the previous one and that’s a good thing.
Having this generation underperform means that we have failed them and we need to figure out exactly how we fucked up. The evidence is really strong that technology in the classroom is a significant contributor.
in the classroom specifically though? did they control for screen time outside of the classroom in the study?
It’s closer to 100 years at this point.
See also Goodhart’s law “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”, which may not be completely relevant here, but is likely a factor (probably a lesser one than the systematic underfunding and other political meddling in US schools).