After 90 years of slowly rising, IQ in the U.S. has dropped for 30 years. Why?

In the 1930s, in both U.S. and across much of the developed world, IQ scores started creeping upward — and kept on going, rising by roughly three points per decade.  The phenomenon was eventually named the Flynn effect, after the social scientist who first noticed it in the 1980s.

Because those steady gains happened over barely a hundred years, Flynn doubted they were caused by genetics.  Evolutionary change takes hundreds of thousands of years, and the humans of 1900 had the same basic mental hardware as those born since 2000.  Instead Flynn thought the increase might have been a kind of software update, uploaded to nearly all minds by modern life itself:  

Could better education have taught students to reason with hypotheticals instead of just memorizing facts? [nah]  Were office jobs requiring workers to deal with ideas instead of physical objects?  Was Mass media exposing audiences to unfamiliar places and perspectives? Perhaps people were getting better at classifying, generalizing, thinking beyond their own daily experience, which are some of the basic skills IQ tests are designed to measure. 

In any case, because t his "Flynn effect" seems to have steadily raised IQs--for whatever reason-- psychologists believed there was no reason that increase wouldn't continue. 

Surprise:  Not only has the Flynn effect seemingly ended, IQ scores in the U.S have been slowly falling for the past 30 years.

ACT scores are the lowest in more than 30 years, despite the test not being any harder.  Average math scores of high-school seniors’ in a national exam were the lowest since 2005.  Over a quarter of U.S. adults now read at the lowest proficiency level. 

Beyond those dismal results, you may have noted that the loudest and least-informed voices now shape the conversation. In nearly all aspects of life, including entertainment, the Mainstream Media and politics, people ask less and less of their brains. The stigma that was once attached to ignorance has disappeared.

IQ drops were evident across gender and education level, but were largest among 18-22-year-olds.  Is there a cause there?

And one result is that polls show as much as a quarter of the electorate is now composed of so-called low-information voters—people who can’t name their representatives and get most of their news from memes, and tend to be more persuadable than their better-informed neighbors. That makes them all-powerful in swing elections, provided campaigns can reach them with a message simple and arousing enough to resonate with what little else they know.

Teachers and Democrats blame falling IQ scores on the school closures during the Chyna virus. But while the long lockdowns--especially of schools--likely damaged your kids, the falling IQs were evident well before 2020.

Some experts blame the IQ drop on smart phones and goofy websites like TikTok, saying they're flooding our reward centers with dopamine—a natural neurotransmitter released by many drugs (and released by sex).  But other experts note there aren't any studies specifically linking dopamine to the use of smart phones.

In June the Reuters Institute reported that more Americans now say they get their news from social media than from Mainstream Media.  Scary example: 17 percent of people worldwide say they believe TikTok is a trusted news source.

But again, these possible explanations don't account for the claim that IQ seems to have been falling since 2020 or so.  This has prompted others to look to the environment, like "micro-plastics."  And I wouldn't be surprised if the Democrats try to blame it on "Globull Worming"...wait, "Climate Change."

Here's my (only slightly tongue-in-cheek) theory:  I blame liberals.  And before you sneer, hear me out:  Liberal Democrats have elevated ignorance and stupidity to an art-form.  When the last Dem president says "We choose truth over facts," and not a *single* Mainstream Media outlet says "That's a moronic word salad," we've crossed a threshold.
   When the contents of Hunty bribem's abandoned laptop were revealed, and *without having examined the contents,* 51 "former" U.S. intel agents signed a letter *absolutely assuring Americans that this was a fake--a case of "Russian disinformation" to sink Joe bribem (as if the Russians wouldn't have *vastly* preferred bribem to Trump)--and the Mainstream Media fawningly supported that horseshit *without a single dissenting voice,* we crossed a threshold.
   When bribem and his handlers opened our southern border and allowed 11 million illegals to enter the U.S. *and be flown at taxpayer expense to northern cities in the middle of the night*--and the Mainstream Media *never said a word about it,* we crossed a threshold.
   When the fucking *leaders* of the Democrat party *finally* forced the senile bribem to renounce the party's nomination, *and then selected the moronic, incompetent Cackles as their nominee...and the Media totally cheered...we crossed a threshold.

Starting to see it yet?  I could keep giving you examples all day.  Americans have trusted the Mainstream Media for ever.  And the Mainstream Media have *always* supported the Democrat party and leftist politics.  But since 2000 or so, they've gone full-propagandists for the Dems.  They gleefully lie and ignore any facts damaging to the Democrat party.

You don't see how this could have a deleterious effect on IQ, and I get it.  But what they've done is to reward young Americans for giving up critical thinking...for unthinkingly agreeing with absurdities like "trans women *are* women."  Once someone accepts such obvious horseshit, no absurd assertion is out of reach.  Like "Diversity is our strength."  Diversity of *thought and ideas," sure.  But cultural diversity is an invitation to the kind of riots we saw in L.A. this past summer.

Oh wait--you didn't.  You saw footage carefully sanitized by the Mainstream Democrat-fellating Media.  To see what really happened you needed to access the cell-phone videos of a hundred non-Media observers.  But you didn't, so you accepted the Media/Democrat/communist/pro-illegal Narrative--which was the goal.  

The Media and leftists have been *rewarding young Americans for not thinking* for 30 years or more.  Did any rational person really think that would have no effect at all?

Okay, all the above was just having fun, but... there does seem to be a drop in IQ.  Is it just in the U.S, or worldwide?  And if "they" claimed it was worldwide, how would you know if they were lying?

I understand that you don't have time to do your own research.  It's not your fault, cuz you're understandably too busy raising your kids and trying to keep food on the family table.  I totally get it, really.  Problem is, if you don't do any, you can't know when the Media is lying to ya.  (Spoiler: if the day ends in "y," they are.)

SO...today is Nov 18, 2025.  The midterms are in about a year.  And given all the foregoing, here are a few predictions:

The off-year elections two weeks ago show the Democrats have huge momentum, and the Media's  continuing demonization of ALL efforts to deport illegals is gonna keep increasing the determination of Democrats to get rid of the GOP.  So the Dems will win both chambers of congress next year.

Second: The stock market has been setting records, but...a recession is "baked in" due to a combination of corporate layoffs and an "AI bubble," much like the tech bubble 20 or so years ago.  There are hundreds of both established companies and startups competing for customers, and there are unlikely to be enough revenue to keep most of 'em solvent.  So, starting in ten months or so they're gonna start shaking out, which is gonna cause the stock market to drop.
   The Dems and their Media fellators will understandably seize on that to claim the economy is a disaster--just as they did to sneer at the Trump economy from February of 2020 thru the election that November that saddled us with the totally corrupt bribem. 
   The Media is already accusing J.D. Vance of wearing eyeliner and other makeup, and this will ramp up as the 2028 election nears.  The Media know those accusations will turn conservative voters off.  Result: Dems (the ghastly, oily, corrupt Gavin Newsom) will win the White House in 2028.
   When NYC and Chitcongo go third-world due to insolvency, Newsom and the Dems in congress won't hesitate to send each city hundreds of billions of tax dollars--all borrowed, of course.  That in turn will trigger an avalanche of identical bailout pleas from L.A, Portland, Seattle, Denver, Atlanta and other Dem-ruled cities.
   The national debt will increase by $8 trillion during Newsom's four years.  (For those not paying attention, that will be an increase of over 20%--in just four years.  If you don't know what that means, stop reading and watch some "entertainment" on your TeeVee.
   The price of gasoline will stay steady, but electricity bills will continue to skyrocket, goosed in part by the fact that "AI centers" will be competing with consumers for electricity--and with only miniscule increases in generating capacity, the only way for utilities to cope is to force residential consumers to reduce consumption, by jacking up the price per kwh.  Dems will blame Trump for "failing to anticipate the need."  Seriously.  And the Media will lap it up and get that message to a public too dumb to know it's a lie. 

Source:  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/a-theory-of-dumb/ar-AA1QAv7E