Is it the end of the Flynn effect?
Decades ago, the researcher James Flynn recognized a secular increase in IQ scores around the world that amounted to humanity getting smarter all the time.
Now, technology appears to be pushing the other way.
The new results are in from a 2025 OECD test of teenage educational achievement around the world, and it looks like the Flynn effect in reverse. “Learning outcomes have stagnated or declined in many countries, in some cases for well over a decade,” according to the OECD.
It’s a mistake to put too much weight on any one imperfect test, but the OECD assessment matches up with other data. There are various theories for what accounts for the slide, but it overlaps with the advent of ubiquitous smartphones, universal access to social media, and the rise of AI.
As one would expect, reading has suffered most. Average reading scores dropped nearly 30 points in OECD countries over the last decade. This amounts to about a year of schooling; in other words, 15-year-olds are now reading at roughly the level of 14-year-olds.
That the trend is so widespread suggests that the cause is also widespread — and the new technology, which has penetrated everywhere, fits the bill.
In not exactly shocking news, the OECD found that AI and other digital tools had downsides: “Students tended to perform less well when use became excessive or when devices were used for leisure at school.” The share of so-called hasty readers, who skimmed and then made mistakes on the test, increased sharply, a tendency one would expect in an era of social media scrolling.
Some nations did better than others. England fared relatively well, probably because it has been relatively immune to faddish theories of instruction.
The United States ranked in the middle of the pack, even though its reading scores are close to a quarter-century low.
What to do? First, someone should take a sledgehammer to every computer and iPad in our schools. Kids get enough screen time at home; they don’t need more when they are in a controlled environment that is supposed to be devoted to learning. Paper books and No. 2 pencils should be the hottest commodities in K–12 education.
The larger problem, though, is what’s happening outside the classroom. Education expert Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute notes a study from Common Sense Media that found that eight- to twelve-year-olds are on screens for more than five hours a day, and 13- to 18-year-olds more than 8.5 hours.
That’s a tide that’s hard to overcome. The new technology may pack a one-two punch: On the one hand, screens and social media make people dumber by diminishing our attention span, while, on the other, AI makes it easier to be stupid by doing our thinking for us.
The education writer Daisy Christodoulou likens it to how widely available, inexpensive calories made it easier to become obese. This was a radical change. During the millennia when scarcity and famine were the norms in human society, nearly everyone had to scrounge for food.
In the same way, AI may lessen the need for brainpower, something that has been in short supply throughout human history and that we’ve poured effort into enhancing through public education the last couple of centuries.
AI may prove the opposite of cheap paper and the printing press, which were long-ago technological improvements that led to more widespread writing and reading and therefore more thought.
If this is the case, education may need to offer the equivalent of workouts for people who want to stay physically fit at a time when — thanks to other technological improvements — physical labor no longer demands it.
Christodoulou suggests that schools might become “gymnasia for the mind.” These would be “places that allow you to practice and acquire the basic skills that are no longer directly rewarded in daily life, but which are still vital.”
Reading should be foremost among them.
© 2026 by King Features Syndicate
