A leading neuroscientist, Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath has claimed that Gen Z is the first modern generation to perform worse academically than the one before it, raising concerns about the impact of technology and digital learning on young minds.
Generation Z — typically defined as those born between 1997 and 2010 — has broken a long-standing trend of each generation outperforming the previous one in education and cognitive ability.
“They’re the first generation in modern history to score lower on standardized academic tests than the one before it,” Dr. Horvath said, as quoted by New York Post. “And to make matters worse, most of these young people are overconfident about how smart they are. The smarter people think they are, the dumber they actually are.
“They underperformed on basically every cognitive measure, from basic attention, memory, literacy, numeracy, executive function and general IQ.”
Horvath recently shared his findings with lawmakers, telling a congressional panel that Gen Z has reversed decades of steady academic progress. He linked the decline largely to constant exposure to digital screens, which he said has replaced deep, focused learning.
“More than half of the time a teenager is awake, half of it is spent staring at a screen,” he said. “Humans are biologically programmed to learn from other humans and from deep study, not flipping through screens for bullet point summaries.”
He explained that digital devices, including phones, tablets and laptops, dominate both classroom instruction and students’ personal time, reducing meaningful engagement with books and structured study. Instead of reading full texts, many students skim summaries while scrolling through social media platforms.
Learning through screens, Horvath argued, encourages surface-level engagement rather than deep understanding, turning students into “skimmers” rather than critical thinkers.
“I’m not anti-tech. I’m pro-rigor,” he said, calling on schools to reduce screen-based learning and return to traditional teaching methods that demand sustained focus and effort.
“A sad fact our generation has to face is this: Our kids are less cognitively capable than we were at their age,” Horvath told the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Technology. “We have been standardizing and measuring cognitive development since the late 1800s.
“Every generation has outperformed their parents” said Horvath. “Until Gen Z.”
He added that the trend is not limited to the United States. Data from dozens of countries suggests that widespread adoption of digital technology in classrooms often coincides with declining academic performance.
“Across 80 countries, if you look at the data, once countries adopt digital technology widely in schools, performance goes down significantly,” he said. “Any time tech enters education, learning goes down.”
Looking ahead, Horvath said he hopes policymakers will rethink the role of technology in schools, particularly for the next cohort, Generation Alpha. He believes reducing screen time and emphasizing rigorous study methods could help reverse the decline in cognitive performance among future students.
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