6 ms·

Children’s IQ dropped during lockdown, study finds

32 points by petodo 4y ago

Spooky23 4y ago
I thought IQ was more inherent? Why would missing a year of school make you dumber or smarter? My school when I was growing up tracked you based on an IQ test at age 4. How does that type of test vary as you age?
- fao_ 4y ago
  It's a little known fact among the MENSA populace that IQ varies across your lifetime, too. Friend of a friend did IQ testing 4 times. First time failed, second time succeeded, third time failed, fourth time succeeded...
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    Because IQ tests don't really measure anything reliable?
  - serf 4y ago
    I feel like that's a stronger indicator in test inconsistency rather than anything about the mysterious quality that they are attempting to measure. Similarly I have always felt that it's strange that SATs get changed periodically but then compared en masse across generations routinely, makes little sense to me.
- Avshalom 4y ago
  autumn 2020 wouldn't even have been a year of missed school.
- netsharc 4y ago
  Without reading the article nor being an expert in intelligence (but hey, I'm a certified HN commenter), probably the reduced stimulation (reduced interaction with friends and the wider world outside the home) is what was detrimental to intelligence development. To use an extreme comparison, children who were locked up in basements also come out being less mentally capable than their peers.
petodo 4y ago
Link to study https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281779 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
meghan_rain 4y ago
Is this because increase social media/internet use? Edit: Also, how can the average IQ be 112? I thought it was always 100?
- hackerlight 4y ago
  > Also, how can the average IQ be 112? I thought it was always 100? Sample mean (112) != population mean (unknowable) != an estimate of the population mean (100)
  - meghan_rain 4y ago
    Can anybody confirm or refute this?
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      This is just statistics. Those 3 things are distinct things in statistical parlance. The 112 number is the sample mean of a given sample. The 100 is the estimate of the population mean. If you give a subset of a population an IQ test, the average of all those results isn't going to be exactly 100, because sample means differ from population means due to sheer noise not to mention sampling bias. You might get 98 or 112. Assuming no bias (such as selection bias), the expected value of the sample mean will asymptote to 100 as you increase the sample size. Likewise if you measure the average height of a group of people, you may get a sample mean of 5'9.6, but it won't be exactly 5'10 or whatever the population mean happens to be in the country at large, again due to noise or sampling bias.
- lockhouse 4y ago
  I think it has more to do with the very low quality of remote instruction. Zoom and friends are generally speaking a terrible way to teach children. The medium is more or less limited to auditory and visual learning. With some preparation and parental involvement you can do some hands on learning, but it is much more limited than in a classroom.
  - 4y ago
Imnimo 4y ago
How should I interpret Figure 8? https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281779.g008 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/... If the difference between the 2012 and 2020 cohorts is roughly the same as between the 2012 and 2002 cohorts, why should I suspect this isn't just a failure to pick comparable cohorts across the decades?
- Avshalom 4y ago
  "Kinda wild" that they're attributing a change over 8 years to the last 6-9 months of that period.
mrlonglong 4y ago
[flagged]
- ETH_start 4y ago
  So the main opposition to Labour should be dismissed off hand? The conflation of 'the political left's perception of reality' with 'the truth' is outrageous, and nothing more than an attempt to delegitimize views that conflict with the political left's agenda, which corresponds with polls showing in the US, registered Democrats are increasingly gravitating toward authoritarianism: https://rumble.com/vnwyhz-the-mountain-of-data-showing-how-authoritarian-democrats-have-become.html https://rumble.com/vnwyhz-the-mountain-of-data-showing-how-a... The evidence for harm from lockdowns is at this point overwhelming, but this issue has become so politicized that the worst policy decision perhaps in history is being swept under the rug. Absent a feasible zero-COVID strategy, which for most countries was never in the books due to their geographical situation, lockdowns have been found to have virtually no impact on reducing the spread of COVID. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13571516.2021.1976051 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13571516.2021.19... https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature... Lockdowns have devastated education: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/schools-more-168-million-children-globally-have-been-completely-closed https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/schools-more-168-milli... https://www.economist.com/international/2022/07/07/covid-learning-loss-has-been-a-global-disaster https://www.economist.com/international/2022/07/07/covid-lea... The cost to lifetime earnings is estimated to be $17 trillion: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/12/06/learning-losses-from-covid-19-could-cost-this-generation-of-students-close-to-17-trillion-in-lifetime-earnings https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/12/06/l... Which will massively exacerbate poverty and all of its associated illnesses. The education losses have been worst for the poor: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/05/remote-learning-likely-widened-racial-economic-achievement-gap/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/05/remote-learni... Social distancing and other COVID control measures, which became mandatory with lockdowns, have been associated with a surge in childhood obesity: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm?s_cid=mm7037a3_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm?s_cid=mm... 97 million more people are estimated to be in poverty due to the social reaction to COVID, the most drastic and disruptive of which were lockdowns: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/updated-estimates-impact-covid-19-global-poverty-turning-corner-pandemic-2021 https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/updated-estimates-impac...
GenerocUsername 4y ago
Elephant in room: Demographic change
- selimthegrim 4y ago
  Wasn’t aware Syrians had those sorts of stereotypes? Plenty of Turks were there in earlier cohorts.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
ekianjo 4y ago
Not just children's...
jbverschoor 4y ago
Even more??
zeruch 4y ago
So did adults, frankly.
postalrat 4y ago
[flagged]
thedrbrian 4y ago
I'm sure it was worth it

32 points by petodo 4y ago

I thought IQ was more inherent? Why would missing a year of school make you dumber or smarter? My school when I was growing up tracked you based on an IQ test at age 4. How does that type of test vary as you age?

fao_ 4y ago
It's a little known fact among the MENSA populace that IQ varies across your lifetime, too. Friend of a friend did IQ testing 4 times. First time failed, second time succeeded, third time failed, fourth time succeeded...
- ekianjo 4y ago
  Because IQ tests don't really measure anything reliable?
- serf 4y ago
  I feel like that's a stronger indicator in test inconsistency rather than anything about the mysterious quality that they are attempting to measure. Similarly I have always felt that it's strange that SATs get changed periodically but then compared en masse across generations routinely, makes little sense to me.
Avshalom 4y ago
autumn 2020 wouldn't even have been a year of missed school.
netsharc 4y ago
Without reading the article nor being an expert in intelligence (but hey, I'm a certified HN commenter), probably the reduced stimulation (reduced interaction with friends and the wider world outside the home) is what was detrimental to intelligence development. To use an extreme comparison, children who were locked up in basements also come out being less mentally capable than their peers.

petodo 4y ago

Link to study https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281779 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

meghan_rain 4y ago

Is this because increase social media/internet use? Edit: Also, how can the average IQ be 112? I thought it was always 100?

hackerlight 4y ago
> Also, how can the average IQ be 112? I thought it was always 100? Sample mean (112) != population mean (unknowable) != an estimate of the population mean (100)
- meghan_rain 4y ago
  Can anybody confirm or refute this?
  - hackerlight 4y ago
    This is just statistics. Those 3 things are distinct things in statistical parlance. The 112 number is the sample mean of a given sample. The 100 is the estimate of the population mean. If you give a subset of a population an IQ test, the average of all those results isn't going to be exactly 100, because sample means differ from population means due to sheer noise not to mention sampling bias. You might get 98 or 112. Assuming no bias (such as selection bias), the expected value of the sample mean will asymptote to 100 as you increase the sample size. Likewise if you measure the average height of a group of people, you may get a sample mean of 5'9.6, but it won't be exactly 5'10 or whatever the population mean happens to be in the country at large, again due to noise or sampling bias.
lockhouse 4y ago
I think it has more to do with the very low quality of remote instruction. Zoom and friends are generally speaking a terrible way to teach children. The medium is more or less limited to auditory and visual learning. With some preparation and parental involvement you can do some hands on learning, but it is much more limited than in a classroom.
- 4y ago

Imnimo 4y ago

How should I interpret Figure 8? https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0281779.g008 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/... If the difference between the 2012 and 2020 cohorts is roughly the same as between the 2012 and 2002 cohorts, why should I suspect this isn't just a failure to pick comparable cohorts across the decades?

Avshalom 4y ago
"Kinda wild" that they're attributing a change over 8 years to the last 6-9 months of that period.

mrlonglong 4y ago

[flagged]

ETH_start 4y ago
So the main opposition to Labour should be dismissed off hand? The conflation of 'the political left's perception of reality' with 'the truth' is outrageous, and nothing more than an attempt to delegitimize views that conflict with the political left's agenda, which corresponds with polls showing in the US, registered Democrats are increasingly gravitating toward authoritarianism: https://rumble.com/vnwyhz-the-mountain-of-data-showing-how-authoritarian-democrats-have-become.html https://rumble.com/vnwyhz-the-mountain-of-data-showing-how-a... The evidence for harm from lockdowns is at this point overwhelming, but this issue has become so politicized that the worst policy decision perhaps in history is being swept under the rug. Absent a feasible zero-COVID strategy, which for most countries was never in the books due to their geographical situation, lockdowns have been found to have virtually no impact on reducing the spread of COVID. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13571516.2021.1976051 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13571516.2021.19... https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature... Lockdowns have devastated education: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/schools-more-168-million-children-globally-have-been-completely-closed https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/schools-more-168-milli... https://www.economist.com/international/2022/07/07/covid-learning-loss-has-been-a-global-disaster https://www.economist.com/international/2022/07/07/covid-lea... The cost to lifetime earnings is estimated to be $17 trillion: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/12/06/learning-losses-from-covid-19-could-cost-this-generation-of-students-close-to-17-trillion-in-lifetime-earnings https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2021/12/06/l... Which will massively exacerbate poverty and all of its associated illnesses. The education losses have been worst for the poor: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/05/remote-learning-likely-widened-racial-economic-achievement-gap/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2022/05/remote-learni... Social distancing and other COVID control measures, which became mandatory with lockdowns, have been associated with a surge in childhood obesity: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm?s_cid=mm7037a3_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7037a3.htm?s_cid=mm... 97 million more people are estimated to be in poverty due to the social reaction to COVID, the most drastic and disruptive of which were lockdowns: https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/updated-estimates-impact-covid-19-global-poverty-turning-corner-pandemic-2021 https://blogs.worldbank.org/opendata/updated-estimates-impac...

GenerocUsername 4y ago

Elephant in room: Demographic change

selimthegrim 4y ago
Wasn’t aware Syrians had those sorts of stereotypes? Plenty of Turks were there in earlier cohorts.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

ekianjo 4y ago

Not just children's...

jbverschoor 4y ago

Even more??

zeruch 4y ago

So did adults, frankly.

postalrat 4y ago

[flagged]

thedrbrian 4y ago

I'm sure it was worth it