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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.
- GenerocUsername 4y ago
  It's a 10 year gap between measure. There could be many factors beyond lockdown
JohnFen 4y ago
The average IQ is 100 by definition. Any time you see someone claiming the average IQ is something other than 100, they either don't know what they're talking about, or they are trying to deceive you about something. This is also why people who say that the average IQ has been rising or falling over time are mistaken. IQ doesn't really mean what most people think it means. What it really means has been a matter of disagreement ever since it was introduced, but it is a poor proxy for "intelligence" at best, and can't be used to compare intelligence differences over time.
- Atheros 4y ago
  Why not?
  - addisonl 4y ago
    The average intelligence has been raising over time but the average IQ has not since, as the other reply said, it is nailed to 100.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Because the scale itself shifts over time. For the sake of argument, let's say that IQ really does measure "intelligence". By the definition of the IQ scale, 100 is always whatever the average intelligence is. So the average intelligence of people in the 1960s was 100. Let's say people have become dumber (or smarter, doesn't matter) in the time since then -- the average IQ of people now is still 100. How much absolute intelligence "100" represents now is not the same as how much intelligence "100" represented then. IQ is about measuring differences in populations at a moment in time. It is not suitable for (or intended to) measure differences over time.
    - Atheros 4y ago
      You didn't answer my question. Above, you said that IQ tests cannot compare intelligence differences over time and I asked why. The fact that the average is always normalized to 100 doesn't make your statement true. Researchers can simply not normalize it to see the difference over time.
haswell 4y ago
> Is this because increase social media/internet use? This was the first thought that came to mind, and I also wonder if this goes further to increased media consumption and phone use/dependence across the board. Smartphone adoption and use was already on a hockey stick trajectory, but adding lockdown to the mix added to many people’s screen time massively. And for kids growing up in that setting, learning that knowledge comes from these magical slabs of glass seems like a good way to stunt certain kinds of curiosity quite early. To whatever degree phone and social media use is a factor, it does seem highly likely that lockdowns accelerated/magnified this effect.
- twelve40 4y ago
  yup, according to my anecdata, every waking moment is now spent at the screen and it's impossible to change because there are no interests outside of that.

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.

GenerocUsername 4y ago
It's a 10 year gap between measure. There could be many factors beyond lockdown

JohnFen 4y ago

The average IQ is 100 by definition. Any time you see someone claiming the average IQ is something other than 100, they either don't know what they're talking about, or they are trying to deceive you about something. This is also why people who say that the average IQ has been rising or falling over time are mistaken. IQ doesn't really mean what most people think it means. What it really means has been a matter of disagreement ever since it was introduced, but it is a poor proxy for "intelligence" at best, and can't be used to compare intelligence differences over time.

Atheros 4y ago
Why not?
- addisonl 4y ago
  The average intelligence has been raising over time but the average IQ has not since, as the other reply said, it is nailed to 100.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Because the scale itself shifts over time. For the sake of argument, let's say that IQ really does measure "intelligence". By the definition of the IQ scale, 100 is always whatever the average intelligence is. So the average intelligence of people in the 1960s was 100. Let's say people have become dumber (or smarter, doesn't matter) in the time since then -- the average IQ of people now is still 100. How much absolute intelligence "100" represents now is not the same as how much intelligence "100" represented then. IQ is about measuring differences in populations at a moment in time. It is not suitable for (or intended to) measure differences over time.
  - Atheros 4y ago
    You didn't answer my question. Above, you said that IQ tests cannot compare intelligence differences over time and I asked why. The fact that the average is always normalized to 100 doesn't make your statement true. Researchers can simply not normalize it to see the difference over time.

haswell 4y ago

> Is this because increase social media/internet use? This was the first thought that came to mind, and I also wonder if this goes further to increased media consumption and phone use/dependence across the board. Smartphone adoption and use was already on a hockey stick trajectory, but adding lockdown to the mix added to many people’s screen time massively. And for kids growing up in that setting, learning that knowledge comes from these magical slabs of glass seems like a good way to stunt certain kinds of curiosity quite early. To whatever degree phone and social media use is a factor, it does seem highly likely that lockdowns accelerated/magnified this effect.

twelve40 4y ago
yup, according to my anecdata, every waking moment is now spent at the screen and it's impossible to change because there are no interests outside of that.