Internet Reducing Global I.Q.?

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:

davidbanner99@ wrote:... putting a man on the moon in 1969 is still probably beyond science today.

So based on that logic the Egyptians had higher average IQ's than we have today. We don't have the science to construct many of the structures found in ancient times.

Certainly the ancient Athenians were intellectually ahead of us in terms of their own analytical skills and maths.

Let's look at what's happening in science today and why I finally decided to cease interaction on science and tech forums:

Modern scientists, in my view, are not the all-knowing experts people assume. There's a big difference between Albert Einstein, Tesla and a grant-funded researcher in a modern-day uni faculty. The difference is that Einstein "understood" the field of physics as a subject. Modern-day scientists, however, depend upon stored data because technology has grown apart from the individual. To put it another way, an engineer in the 1950s could build and design a transmitter. Today, a modern engineer could hardly construct and design the digital equivalent. As data and more data has been added over decades to software design platforms, overall design is too complicated and industrialised. The result? Engineers have lost control.

Where am I heading? Patience and you will see.

Scientists have lost control. Indeed, huge Japanese corporations such as Sanyo collectively lost control when digital choked out the designer electronics industry. I mean, in the 1980s those amazing Japanese cameras were understood by designers and engineers. This created real jobs and dynamic industries (where we were integrated with technology and developed real skills).

Conclusion? Technology as a self-generating process has outpaced our greater (but dormant) human potential. To me, science today is like painting by numbers - where what we create is dictated by software, accumulation of data and driven, not by curiosity, but by profit.

Therefore it's a paradox. The question now is this: As technology continues to be stored as data while individuality fades into the foreground, will the bubble just pop? Will there be people like Einstein who had a full scientific understanding of highly advanced physics? Will we be a generation of consumers enslaved by a self made web of dependency?

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:First, I think I was using a different definition of global IQ. I was defining the term as a collective, meaning that globally if we added up all the IQ points there would be more, not less. This is partly due to an overall increase in population, but also because thanks to the Internet there is more access to education. Collectively there is more intelligence globally than at any other point in history.

You are using a different definition. You are saying that IQ at the individual level is lower, that the average person has a lower IQ and that this drop is across the globe. It's your thread, so I will use your definition.

davidbanner99@ wrote:"Abstract
Excessive internet use is shown to be cross-sectionally associated with lower cognitive functioning and reduced volume of several brain areas.

Second, don't blame the Internet. It is like trying to blame the invention of the slot machine for addiction to gambling. It is not the Internet that is causing the average individual to score lower on a standardized IQ test. That has been taking place since before the Internet was invented, e.g. television.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10 ... lCode=jmqb

A 1986 study on "Television and Verbal Intelligence". The finding, "Verbal intelligence scores are consistently lower for heavy tv viewers."

What else can we blame for lower average IQ? Drug use, video games, the suburbs? Or how about the decline in educational standards that has taken place since the 70's? No, the poor Internet gets the blame as it is the new, shiny distraction.

As a fun sidenote, did you know that the game of chess has been banned repeatedly over 100's of years for various reasons, including because it was seen as a frivolous waste of time?

http://www.billwall.phpwebhosting.com/a ... s_bans.htm

The bottom line is twofold:

-1- Let's assume the Internet, at least in part, is a contributing factor for lower average IQ. Forget about all the other potential causes for a minute.

-2- So what?

Remember that 100 collective good scientists doesn't make up one Tesla or another Einstein. Even if we accept the collective IQ has increased, I don't think quantity = quality.
The question is what makes an elite scientist? I guess imagination is super important which is why Einstein recommended fairy stories for children. Association, I think is very important. Individuality and willingness to take new directions. I also tend to rate isolation since Einstein tended to do his research alone over many hours.
The internet I still view with skepticism. Great for obtaining sources and data but it somehow takes away from imagination and inventiveness. Same applies to music. Compared to The Beatles or Hendrix modern net produced music seems a poor approximation.
All in all with the new we seem to be going backwards.

In practical terms?
My own raw I.Q. was very low. It corresponded to Kanner's Early Childhood Autism so, for me, school was a big problem. I had the typical autism strong reading ability but poor maths and poor concentration. And whereas normal people have a graduated learning curve, starting from childhood, mine was a flat line. These days I believe the methods I gradually developed to deal with my learning obstacles could be of value. My current intellectual level is kind of uneven and unconventional. I still learn more slowly than the norm but, being autistic, I see patterns in things and tend to be more theoretical.
Therefore to increase your brainpower, you need:
A challenging, creative environment around you.
Very quiet study time alone.
Time spent striving to understand puzzles and trying to make questions.
Meditative thought and trying to see beyond routine and the here and now.
Avoidance of junk TV, junk internet and negativity.
Balanced physical exercise such as jogging three times a week.

davidbanner99@ wrote:Remember that 100 collective good scientists doesn't make up one Tesla or another Einstein. Even if we accept the collective IQ has increased, I don't think quantity = quality.

You do realize this destroys your entire argument? If quantity doesn't matter then a reduction in global IQ doesn't matter...unless you are trying to make the argument -> because of the Internet there will never be another Einstein.

And just for fun, if it is about quality and you are for some reason concerned that the Internet is depressing the handful of high IQ individuals in the world you can breath easier. The number of people with high IQ's is increasing. The total number of those qualified as "genius" is on the rise.

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-50480137

And still you have avoided the elephant in the room, why IQ is even important.

Richard@DecisionSkills wrote:

davidbanner99@ wrote:Remember that 100 collective good scientists doesn't make up one Tesla or another Einstein. Even if we accept the collective IQ has increased, I don't think quantity = quality.

You do realize this destroys your entire argument? If quantity doesn't matter then a reduction in global IQ doesn't matter...unless you are trying to make the argument -> because of the Internet there will never be another Einstein.

And just for fun, if it is about quality and you are for some reason concerned that the Internet is depressing the handful of high IQ individuals in the world you can breath easier. The number of people with high IQ's is increasing. The total number of those qualified as "genius" is on the rise.

https://www.bbc.com/news/education-50480137

And still you have avoided the elephant in the room, why IQ is even important.

Many of us these days use the term "IQ" to denote intelligence, as opposed to its literal meaning of an intelligence test. Apart from that, most authorities agree that to accurately test intelligence is virtually impossible. At least in my opinion.

The quote you forwarded me has referred to large membership of IQ societies but we should bear in mind no great inventor in the past was in any particular club or society.

I tend to agree with Paul Cooijman that intelligence and genius are not the same. In fact, personally, I would have rated Muhammad Ali (previously Cassius Clay) as a genius, as well as martial artist and film director Bruce Lee. In both cases they reinvented a totally new approach to their activity and worked relentlessly hard. Paul Cooijman wrote:

"Intelligence, when reaching the very highest altitudes, somehow reduces the frequency of genius; it has been pointed out that geniuses tend to have high, but not the highest intelligence; that those with the very highest I.Q.s are typically not geniuses. I do not know the precise mechanism yet, but relevant is my own finding that, in the high range, there is a significant negative correlation between I.Q. and 1) psychiatric disorders in oneself; 2) psychiatric disorders in one's parents and siblings (which reflect genetic disposition); 3) disposition for psychiatric disorders as measured by personality tests."

"And still you have avoided the elephant in the room, why IQ is even important."

The context was that the internet in its totality makes us lazy because we reference quick information and think less. When I remarked IQ levels appear to be falling, I wasn't referring to an actual test. I had in mind a decline in population intelligence. I think your own view here is that availability of the internet in itself automatically makes populations "smarter" as information is widely available. However, this leaves out the distinction between access to data and how net use consumes our time. The bulk of it seems to be Social Media, e-commerce and games. Even in the case of college work, the net makes it simple to copy and paste an assignment. Therefore we use our own cognitive resources less, I believe. And it matters because we need education to combat extremism and protect our rights and freedom of speech.

Fairly recently I met an oldish man whom I concluded borders genius, or if not genius very dedicated to learning. To date, I never met anyone with so much obscure knowledge of audio engineering. That included how tubes and transistors were made. What struck me most was he wasn't successful. No big house or fancy car and no sexy female on his arm. A lone eccentric with reasonable social skills but somehow offbeat.
Pertinent to the question is why in our society such people tend to have so little. Also in our internet culture we tend to be offered work where the emphasis is on performance of tasks at a fast pace and need for social skills. It's assumed the internet can simply eiminate the need for inventive skills in actual people.

At first they said that the Internet will access to any library in the world but what we see is that people don't go to libraries but prefer different type of sites

davidbanner99@ wrote:Here is a very clever video that illustrated the idea:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=swXh18CQOes

Thank you for this interesting story!

Tom Dolton wrote:At first they said that the Internet will access to any library in the world but what we see is that people don't go to libraries but prefer different type of sites

Just a point of interest. In the 1990s I decided to study Russian at uni. It was an impulse decision. Anyway, there was very little internet till e-mail was used around 1995. We had to use big dictionaries in libraries and basic, printed books. The department must have had at least 100 students with about six teachers. The only high tech prop was satellite TV.
Now forward to 2020. We now have awesome online tools for learning a language, such as translation aids, dictionaries and search engines. I can even download movies. And yet....
The department closed a fair few years ago and I believe very few students study Russian today. This is because generally education became more career based as opposed to risk based. I don't see languages as the option it was in the past and a lot of people just use Google Translate. That includes some elite psychologists using German texts.
Another weird thing is when they sent me to Russia in the 1990s, the level of English I witnessed in Russian classrooms was pretty decent. Not as good as Germany or Holland but most Russians I found to be acceptable in use of English. However, today in 2020 I find online that Russian speakers don't seem to practise or attempt to use English at all. Plus when I use Russian on Russian forums it doesn't seem to win any friends - just apathy.
The question is then why have these changes come about? What happened? In the 1990s you got a State grant, free haircuts (for students), lots of enthusiasm and even hope of a job at the end. Now, today we have much more technical opportunity but something went wrong.

Just been reading some bank customer service reviews. Clearly, I am not alone. I.T. has gotten to the point where I (and many others) don't feel savings are secure in a bank. It boils down to the same, core problem: There is no actual, personal contact. For example, actually entering a bank, staff will ask you to phone a given number but this process can take an hour or simply revolve around recorded messages. E-mail used to exist but I notice this has more or less ceased. As I look at reviews, I find a huge amount of concern and even the odd legal alternative.
Here's the bottom line: With online marketing and banking, the whole system attempts to function without real offices or representation. The fashionable expression is, "Just do it online!".
The alternatives?
Offices with staff and phones, actively helping to solve issues.
People who can be contacted (and not recorded messages)
Shops where you can look at products before buying (the old fictional Grace Brothers)
I could go on but, like many others, I.T. banking especially has me nervous. It's inconvenient to have to withdraw savings from accounts but the current situation is getting too problematic.

I.Q is important and solidifies brain exercise. Its important not to tamper with I.Q information. I am not saying you personally but in general.