"You are dumber than your parents."

Actually, no.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

"The Flynn effect is the substantial and long-sustained increase in intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world from roughly 1930 to the present day. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised, they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first. Again, the average result is set to 100. However, when the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100."

Nice try.

Dear Jon J.,

We seem to have a problem of language as the author is confusing and freely interchanging "dumb" and "stupid".

I am getting confused myself, but assuming that the opposite of "intelligent" is "dumb", I agree that the new generations are not getting any dumber. They are however, due to their preoccupation with this technology which removes them from real life, more deficient in wisdom than their grandparents, for which the best describing word is probably "fool" in the sense of the book of Proverbs.

You're in the wrong job for a start. Perhaps a career change is in order you sound depressed.

Anyway, 'Today the average person spends about two hours a day working on their Facebook page.'

I call BS.

Storm in a t-cup all this. It's the trendy thing to do knocking social media. But it basically boils down to the generation gap and grumpy old men. How do you come to the conclusion that if people wern't manipulating their narcissistic public image and playing the voyeur on facebook they'd be designing pyramids I don't know. All that bit about the pyramids where apparently the unwashed masses were all feverish trigonomitrists, such BS!

The only real identifyable downsides is the lack of physical exercise but that's prevalent in all aspects of our luxuroius society, and the changing (good AND bad) of the brain to do with google making human memory redundant, and the web in general encouraging lateral more than linear thought.

Just look at the quality of scripts and the more dense themes of well written TV shows and compare to shows of the 60s and you'll see society is more intelligent these days.

The medium has changed, there will always be bogan masses and snobby psuedo intellectual elites, the masses will have their entertainment and the elites will feel superior and tut-tut.

Oh the worlds gone to hell....

AGAIN!

rinse and repeat.

Dear Houellebecq,

<<Just look at the quality of scripts and the more dense themes of well written TV shows and compare to shows of the 60s and you'll see society is more intelligent these days.>>

Sigh, yes, society is more intelligent than in the 60's and has more sophisticated ways to lull individuals to sleep.

TV (and entertainment in general) is an indication of intelligence, but not an indication of wisdom.

<<there will always be bogan masses and snobby psuedo intellectual elites, the masses will have their entertainment and the elites will feel superior and tut-tut.>>

True, we are not likely to see any of those two descriptions disappear any time soon, but what about all the others?