Youngsters’ IQ drops for first time in half century

The average IQ of young people has begun to deteriorate for the first time in more than half a century. New research in the journal PNAS says the change was first seen among people born around 1975. The Ragnar Frisch Centre for Economic Research in Oslo found those who sat a standardised IQ test scored lower today than their fathers at the same age. It marks an abrupt reversal of the so-called “Flynn effect”, which has seen IQ scores rise year on year, among all age groups.

Scientists say that the deterioration could be down to changes in the way maths and languages are taught, or to a shift from reading books to spending time on television and computers.