{"id":2569597,"date":"2026-02-13T08:16:59","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gen-z-is-dumber-thanks-to-adults-saturating-their-lives-with-screens\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T08:24:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T13:24:21","slug":"gen-z-is-dumber-thanks-to-adults-saturating-their-lives-with-screens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gen-z-is-dumber-thanks-to-adults-saturating-their-lives-with-screens\/","title":{"rendered":"Gen Z Is &#8216;Dumber&#8217; Thanks To Adults Forcing Screens On Them"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgen-z-is-dumber-thanks-to-adults-saturating-their-lives-with-screens%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2569597&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>This piece argues that concerns about Gen Z\u2019s cognitive abilities miss the bigger issue: why young people would pursue deep thinking in a culture that rewards speed, novelty, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lib-strategist-reveals-plan-for-addressing-democratic-digital-crisis-reviving-rebranding-kamalas-failed-campaign-account\/\" title=\"Lib Strategist Reveals Plan for Ad...essing &#039;Democratic Digital Crisis&#039;: Reviving, Rebranding Kamala&#039;s Failed Campaign Account\">surface-level engagement<\/a>. It centers on Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath\u2019s testimony to Congress, wich the author says the New York Post distorted, reducing a nuanced argument about education and technology into a crude insult toward an entire generation.<\/p>\n<p>key points:<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The NY Post article is criticized for a surface-level, data-skimmed take that misrepresents horvath\u2019s testimony, which warns about broader trends in educational development.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Horvath contends that cognitive development has stalled or reversed in many developed countries, with the rapid and largely unregulated expansion of educational technology identified as a major driver.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; International assessments (PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS) show that higher daily screen exposure in classrooms correlates with lower scores in reading, math, and science.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The education system has become increasingly about quantification\u2014grades, rubrics, tests, and checklists\u2014reducing learning to transactional outcomes and stifling creativity.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Digital platforms are designed to capture attention and encourage rapid task-switching, leading to shallow processing and poorer deep encoding of material.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Beyond cognition, motivation suffers when culture prioritizes immediacy over understanding; information is consumed for novelty rather than meaning, echoing Neil Postman\u2019s warning about information not equaling knowledge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; History is frequently enough taught as impression rather than a coherent narrative, and handwritten notes are shown to support better summarization and conceptual encoding than typing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The Covid-era shift to Zoom exposed education as performative, leaving students more able to conform than to think independently.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The author suggests that Gen Z\u2019s disengagement reflects systemic incentives rather than inherent capacity; unless schools address how technology fragments attention and rewards speed, efforts to foster deep thinking will remain performative.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The piece ends with the author,Julianna Frieman,and her professional background.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>For all the noise surrounding Gen Z&rsquo;s cognitive decline, the more honest question is not whether young Americans are capable of deep thought but why they would be motivated to pursue it in the first place. <\/p>\n<p>A recent New York Post <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/07\/us-news\/gen-z-the-first-generation-officially-dubbed-dumber-than-the-last\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">article<\/a> declaring Gen Z &ldquo;dumber&rdquo; than previous generations is itself a perfect illustration of the problem: a surface-level take built around a provocative headline, thin contextualization, and little engagement with the actual data it cites. In other words, the reporter skimmed to produce this report, exhibiting exactly the behavior the media outlet condemns.<\/p>\n<p>The New York Post relies on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commerce.senate.gov\/services\/files\/A19DF2E8-3C69-4193-A676-430CF0C83DC2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">testimony<\/a> from neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, who did, in fact, present troubling evidence to Congress. Despite this, the article compresses that testimony into a caricature, reducing a complex structural argument into an insult lobbed at an entire generation of young people. Horvath&rsquo;s written statement is a warning that evolving technology and cultural attitudes contribute to the state of today&rsquo;s youth&rsquo;s educational development.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Over the past two decades,&rdquo; Horvath writes, &ldquo;the cognitive development of children across much of the developed world has stalled and, in many domains, reversed.&rdquo; That reversal is historically unprecedented. For over a century, expanding access to education reliably produced cognitive gains until the mid-2000s.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Blaming Gen Z is of little interest to Horvath; instead, he points to the education system. The most significant change, he argues, is the &ldquo;rapid and largely unregulated expansion of educational technology&rdquo; that now dominates classrooms. International assessments such as the Programme for International Studies Assessment (PISA), the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), and the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), which tracked millions of students over several decades, show a consistent pattern: &ldquo;When students self-report classroom computer use, <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >higher daily screen exposure consistently corresponds<\/a> to lower scores in reading, mathematics, and science.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The promise that technology would deepen learning has largely gone unfulfilled.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Gen Z came of age in an educational system obsessed with quantification. Grades, rubrics, standardized tests, behavior charts, and participation metrics defined success. Even creativity was bureaucratized. A poem for class might have been assigned as an act of self-expression, but both teacher and student knew it was just another item on a year-long checklist. Knowledge became transactional rather than something sought after out of curiosity.<\/p>\n<p>This environment trained students to skim through rather than explore the subject material. Horvath explains why this matters at the neurological level. &ldquo;Human attention systems evolved to sustain focus on a single task at a time,&rdquo; he notes. Digital platforms, by contrast, are &ldquo;engineered to capture attention, fragment focus, and accelerate task switching.&rdquo; Learning thus shifted from deep encoding to surface familiarity. Students recognized information without retaining it.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond cognition lies motivation. Why would a young person want to read deeply, think slowly, or wrestle seriously with history or philosophy in a culture that treats immediacy as truth? We live in a society that privileges the most recent headline, the latest clip, and the viral take. Information arrives constantly like an endless rain, flooding our minds with droplets stripped of context and hierarchy. What matters most is not whether something is true but whether it is new.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Neil Postman warned about this decades ago. In his 1985 book, <em>Amusing Ourselves to Death<\/em>, he observed that information does not equal knowledge and that a culture flooded with disconnected facts risks losing the capacity for meaning altogether. It is the same plight as fast-fashion consumerism, where buyers cycle through the latest, cheaply made, trendy clothing items only to discard them shortly after they become outdated in the eyes of the zeitgeist. Information is similarly consumed and then discarded as a garbage commodity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Schools increasingly mirror the logic of modern media. History is often taught as a set of emotional impressions rather than a coherent narrative grounded in chronology and causation. Teachers shrug off names and dates in favor of a quick pace and political correctness. Students are unaware of how the past shapes the present and inevitably makes our future. Gen Z was encouraged to react before they understood the big picture. Moral interpretation replaces careful study, and the irony is that today&rsquo;s educators wouldn&rsquo;t dare evoke the very Bible that built much of traditional America&rsquo;s moral compass.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Horvath highlights that handwritten notes outperform typing because handwriting &ldquo;forces summarization, organization, and conceptual encoding.&rdquo; These practices slow students down. They demand patience. But patience has become a liability in a culture built around speed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Covid panic exposed these dynamics in their most extreme form. When education collapsed into Zoom video conferences and digital surveillance, learning became almost entirely performative. Students were observed and recorded but rarely invited to wonder. Many emerged knowing how to comply, yet they remain unsure how to think independently.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>If Gen Z appears disengaged or shallow, that may say less about intellectual capacity than about incentives. In a culture that rewards speed, novelty, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lets-kill-some-conservatives\/\" title=\"This requires a complete rewrite to ensure appropriate and respectful language is used. How about this: &quot;Let&#039;s engage in meaningful discussions with those who have different viewpoints\">surface-level reaction<\/a>, deep learning becomes something humans try to outsource to machines. The encouraging truth is that the desire to know has not disappeared. It has simply been buried alive.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Until schools reckon honestly with how technology and digital media fracture attention and reward speed over substance, appeals for deeper thinking will remain performative; no child can be expected to dig deeper in an educational system engineered to keep him skimming. By teaching children to assimilate to the digital downward spiral rather than resist it, schools are not educating at all &mdash; they are formalizing America&rsquo;s decline.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Julianna Frieman is a writer who covers culture, technology, and civilization. She has an M.A. in Communications (Digital Strategy) from the University of Florida and a B.A. in Political Science from UNC Charlotte. Her work has been published by the Daily Caller, The American Spectator, and The Federalist. Follow her on X at <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/juliannafrieman\">@juliannafrieman<\/a>. Find her on Substack at juliannafrieman.substack.com.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a paraphrase of the piece, followed by a 55-character summary as requested.<\/p>\n<p>Paraphrase<br \/>\nAmid the uproar over Gen Z\u2019s supposed cognitive decline, the more revealing question is why they would be motivated to think deeply in the first place. A New York Post piece calling Gen Z \u201cdumber\u201d illustrates the core problem: a provocative headline, scant context, and little engagement with the data it cites. The article cites neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath, who did warn Congress, but it compresses his nuanced argument into a crude jab at an entire generation. Horvath\u2019s written statement cautions that evolving technology and cultural attitudes are affecting today\u2019s youth educationally. He notes that, over the past two decades, cognitive development in many developed countries has stalled or even reversed\u2014a reversal without historical precedent. Rather than blame Gen Z, he points to education, especially the rapid and largely unregulated spread of educational technology in classrooms. Large international assessments tracking millions of students show that when students report higher classroom computer use, increased screen time correlates with lower scores in reading, math, and science. The promise of technology to deepen learning has largely gone unfulfilled.<\/p>\n<p>Gen Z grew up in a system obsessed with quantification\u2014grades, rubrics, standardized tests, behavior charts, and participation metrics defined success. Even creativity was turned into a bureaucratic checklist. Knowledge became transactional rather than something pursued from curiosity, encouraging skim-reading instead of deep exploration. Neurologically, Horvath explains, human attention systems evolved to sustain focus on one task at a time, while digital platforms are engineered to seize attention, fragment focus, and promote rapid task-switching. Learning accordingly shifted from deep encoding to surface familiarity, with students recognizing information but not retaining it.<\/p>\n<p>Motivation matters as well: why would a young person choose to read deeply or grapple with history or philosophy in a culture that treats immediacy as truth? We live in a world where the latest headline, clip, or viral take arrives constantly, and what matters is not truth but novelty. Neil Postman warned long ago that information is not equivalent to knowledge and that a culture flooded with disconnected facts can lose its sense of meaning. Today\u2019s schooling often mirrors that media logic, teaching history as emotional impressions rather than a coherent narrative grounded in chronology and causation, valuing speed and political correctness over careful understanding. Gen Z is conditioned to react before grasping the big picture, with moral interpretation displacing careful study, and today\u2019s educators wouldn\u2019t even invoke the Bible that once shaped traditional American moral codes.<\/p>\n<p>Horvath notes that handwritten notes outperform typing because writing by hand requires summarization, organization, and conceptual encoding, which slows students down\u2014patience that a speed-focused culture disfavors. The Covid-era pivot to Zoom laid bare these dynamics, making learning feel performative: students were observed and recorded but not invited to think independently, and many left knowing how to comply but not how to think for themselves.<\/p>\n<p>If Gen Z seems disengaged or shallow, the issue may lie more in incentives than in intellect. A culture that prizes speed, novelty, and quick reactions makes deep learning feel outsourceable to machines. The hopeful sign is that the desire to know remains; it\u2019s simply been buried. Until schools honestly address how technology and digital media fracture attention and reward speed over substance, calls for deeper thinking will stay performative, and a system designed to keep students skimming will be unable to educate them properly. By teaching students to yield to the digital downward spiral rather than resist it, schools risk not educating at all and accelerating America\u2019s decline.<\/p>\n<p>Author: Julianna Frieman is a writer who covers culture, technology, and civilization. She holds an M.A. in Communications (Digital Strategy) from the University of Florida and a B.A. in Political Science from UNC Charlotte. Her work has appeared in The Daily Caller, The American Spectator, and The Federalist. Follow her on X at @juliannafrieman or find her on Substack at juliannafrieman.substack.com.<\/p>\n<p>55-character summary<br \/>\nGen Z debate on mind misses why depth matters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1616,"featured_media":2569598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Girl-in-White-T-shirt-Using-Laptop.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[18039,17459,71118],"class_list":["post-2569597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-gen-z","tag-parenting","tag-screen-time-2"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Girl-in-White-T-shirt-Using-Laptop.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1616"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2569597"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2569602,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2569597\/revisions\/2569602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2569598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2569597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2569597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2569597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}