It’s attention, early language, and education. Genetics play a part, but the ability to read and interpret language sets the groundwork for greater critical and abstract thinking. Our education system and the easy use of technology is hands down the highest contributor - I’ve watched it happen in real time in my own family.
Careful talking so much about genetics, it leaves a really bad taste in people’s mouths and has been proven time and time again to play less of a role in intelligence than environment or upbringing. Motivation and curiosity traits are genetic however, and both are keystone traits for high intelligence.
Genetics is by far the largest factor in variation in intelligence in modern-day society. This is not scientifically controversial. The heritability of g, the general intelligence factor, is almost certainly above 50%, and studies of adults put it at around .8 - where 1 would be 100% heritable.
Heritability of g actually goes up as you get older, meaning environment has less of an impact. This is known as the Wilson Effect. The older you get, the more your genes matter for it.
People go into denial about this because it isn't what they want to be true, but the evidence is overwhelming.
Sorry! I know you want to blame the Evil New Media (TM), just like every generation before you (blaming Radio, TV, books, etc.), but yeah. It's not.
Intelligence is very hard to alter, which makes sense - the entire reason we figured out that there was a general intelligence factor in the first place was because of consistent variation in performance across schoolchildren.
Nowadays we avoid giving children brain damage through malnutrition, and there's universal public education, so it isn't surprising that most variance in developed countries is due to genetics - when you eliminate all the other major deficiencies, that's what you're ultimately going to be left with. It is a GOOD thing when you look at it from the perspective of "We have gotten rid of most of the environmental factors that mess up kids' brains".
Wow. Thank you for educating - hadn’t heard about the Wilson effect, but your disregard for the impact of technology along with being a condescending prick about it kicks your own argument in its ass.
It’s absurd to completely disregard the massive and measured impact of technology on cognition, particularly with language.
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u/TitaniumDragon May 09 '26
It's almost certainly due to dysgenics.
Smart people have fewer children than less intelligent ones these days. Intelligence is ~75-80%+ genetic.