this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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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 study, 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.
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