It has been argued that Generation Z, which grew up in a digital environment, performed lower in academic achievement and major cognitive abilities than the previous generation. According to the New York Post, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, an American neuroscientist, recently announced in testimony to the U.S. Congress that “Generation Z, classified as born in 1997-2010, is the first generation to score lower than the previous generation in standardized academic evaluation.”
He explained that Generation Z showed lower performance than the previous generation in almost all major cognitive indicators such as attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, execution function, and overall intelligence (IQ). He also added that there is a tendency to perceive one’s learning ability higher than it actually is.
Dr. Horvath pointed to ‘constant screen exposure’ as a key cause of this change. Generation Z is the first generation to be constantly exposed to digital devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops from childhood, and the learning environment itself has fundamentally changed.
“Adolescents spend about half of their waking hours looking at the screen,” he said. “Humans are originally designed to learn through interaction with others and in-depth learning. Summary information or short video-oriented learning cannot replace this,” he pointed out.
He also emphasized, “Since the late 1800s, cognitive development by generation has been measured, but all generations have shown higher performance than their parents’ generation. In Generation Z, the trend was first broken.” Dr. Horvath, who also argued that “this phenomenon is not a problem limited to the United States,” said, “Looking at academic achievement data from 80 countries, academic performance tends to decline significantly after the widespread introduction of digital technology into the school field. The more technology enters the educational field, the more cases where learning outcomes fall are repeated.”
“In the future, schools should reduce the use of digital devices in classrooms and prepare a better learning environment for the next generation, Alpha generation,” he said.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
