Idiocracy Looms As Study Finds TikTok Rots Youth Minds

The intelligence test was invented 121 years ago.

While IQ scores have historically risen alongside technological advancements, recent years have seen a slowdown—if not a reversal—in intelligence. The rise of smartphones, tablets, and social media may be to blame, and more recently, the phenomenon of the ‘TikTok brain‘ among teenagers suggests peak cognition has arrived.

Jelly Bean Brains pic.twitter.com/OJI1SOs0y8

— TikTok’s Hottest (@TikTokFemmes) March 20, 2025

A new report from the Financial Times cites a test used to measure the IQs of 15-year-olds, conducted by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). This test evaluates students’ performance in reading, mathematics, and science literacy. The latest data suggests that IQs peaked in the early 2010s. 

Peak cognition fears come nearly two decades after the debut of the satirical sci-fi comedy Idiocracy, which depicted a dystopian future where humanity becomes profoundly dumbed down by the 2500s. 

Idiocracy (2006) is a documentary. #Fuddruckers pic.twitter.com/mVfWbG5BBq

— Jay Jayson (@JayJayson111) April 18, 2020

FT’s chief data reporter, John Burn-Murdoch, said the timing of this data marks an “inflection point” and is “noteworthy” because it coincides with “our changing relationship with information,” which is now primarily online. 

NEW : Is human intelligence starting to decline?

Recent results from major international tests show that the average person’s capacity to process information, use reasoning and solve novel problems has been falling since around the mid 2010s.

What should we make of this? pic.twitter.com/WyZoNEcTd3

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) March 14, 2025

Declining math and literacy skills are likely the result of a shift away from text-based learning toward visual media. Additionally, there is a broader erosion in the capacity for mental focus, which could be attributed to ‘TikTok brain rot‘—with youth spending countless hours each week mindlessly swiping into oblivion. It’s clear that digital technologies have impacted attention span, memory, and self-regulation negatively. 

A surge in the share of 15-year-olds who reported difficulties in PISA tests coincides with big changes in how information is processed, shifting drastically away from reading to visual content over the two decades. 

Peak cognition fears suggest achieving full Idiocracy may happen at a much more accelerated timeline. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence could surpass human IQs by the next decade… 

“I think today’s systems, they’re very passive, but there’s still a lot of things they can’t do. But I think over the next five to 10 years, a lot of those capabilities will start coming to the fore and we’ll start moving towards what we call artificial general intelligence,” Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said at a briefing on Monday.

TikTok and other digital technologies that offer instant gratification through swiping left, right, up, or down appear to have made society even dumber.