Scariest Data Point Attributing to Gen Z on Social Media

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]I think it's absolutely terrifying that my generation is measurably worse in every cognitive category than our parents were for the first time in recent history. We have worse attention spans, our memories are worse, our IQs are lower than our parents were. That has not happened in hundreds of years.

[00:00:18]And sure, there are multiple factors at play in that change, but it's pretty undeniable that flooding our systems with short-form content for hours and hours a day is playing a role in that. I think we all know that intuitively, can feel it in our own lives, and it's starting to increasingly come out in the data. There have been studies that have shown just 15 minutes of scrolling on TikTok can really reduce your level of analytical thinking. It can have impacts on your prospective memory, your ability to remember to do something in the future. So, in short, we are brain rotting ourselves, and now it's really starting to show up in the actual cognitive measures about how our brains are working.