“I’m just trying to go through life without looking stupid. It’s not working out too well.” –Brian Regan
Can you relate? Every few years, a headline circulates through our national conversation, asking whether Americans are “getting dumber.” Recently, New York magazine revisited that concern in an essay titled “Are We Getting Stupider?” and reached a quietly radical conclusion: We aren’t necessarily losing intelligence; we’re just living in a world with many more ways to look and feel foolish. The issue isn’t our brains. It’s our environment.
That distinction is important as we move toward 2026, especially for journalists who must help the public navigate a society full of complexity, contradiction, and information noise.
Throughout most of the 20th century, standardized IQ scores steadily rose. Researchers called this the Flynn Effect, with an average increase of about three IQ points per decade. This rise was not caused by genetic changes. Instead, it resulted from environmental improvements, better education, nutrition, and more cognitively demanding work and daily life (James Flynn, University of Otago, New Zealand). It seemed that human intelligence was consistently advancing.
But recent data complicates that story. A Northwestern University study of testing from 2006 to 2018 showed declines in three of four major cognitive areas, including verbal and matrix reasoning (Northwestern University News, 2023). Similar downward trends have been observed across multiple industrialized countries, leading researchers to describe a Reverse Flynn Effect (Studies in Intelligence, via ScienceDirect, 2016; 2022). These findings do not prove that people are biologically less intelligent than earlier generations. Instead, they suggest a shift in environments that once helped improve performance on abstract tests.
And that is precisely where New York magazine offers a powerful lens: Modern life has become a cognitive obstacle course.
The magazine shows a world where even small mistakes, like forgetting a password, selecting the wrong menu option, or sharing an unverified post, can have serious consequences. In the past, a careless moment might have only caused a private inconvenience. Now, the same error can instantly send money to the wrong account, spread false information to millions, or disrupt news coverage during the early moments of a breaking story.
Complexity raises the chances of mistakes. Technology speeds up how quickly those mistakes spread. Social platforms amplify the worst parts of our nature. None of this means we are “dumber.” It means we are living in a system that overwhelms attention, fractures memory, and invites misunderstandings at a scale no previous generation faced.
That is why this conversation matters for journalists. If the public feels cognitively overwhelmed, and research suggests many do, then journalists must act as the anchor, not another source of chaos. Clarity becomes not just a journalistic skill but an ethical duty. We can no longer assume background knowledge, shared context, or even basic civic vocabulary. Explanations that once seemed obvious now require careful unpacking.
At the same time, journalists must resist the cultural pressures that push for oversimplification. Complexity is not our enemy; it is the foundation of our work. The urge to turn complex stories into simple clichés is strong, especially in an attention-driven economy that values speed over accuracy and certainty over curiosity. But the New York essay reminds us that clichés can also signal mental fatigue, showing that people are seeking shortcuts because the world feels overwhelming. Our job is to fight this tendency with thorough reporting, clearer framing, and a steadfast dedication to nuance.
The IQ studies also offer a subtle warning: as society’s cognitive load grows, trust drops when journalism doesn’t make the world clear. People don’t lose faith in institutions because they lack intelligence; they lose trust because they feel misled, ignored, or unable to see the truth. Confusion breeds cynicism. The solution to confusion isn’t outrage or opinion, it’s understanding.
This brings us to the most urgent issue. The problem with journalism today isn’t that Americans know less than before, but that they’re asked to handle more than any other society in history. They’re trying to juggle politics, technology, economics, global conflicts, social changes, and algorithmic chaos all at once. If journalism can’t help them understand that world, someone else, often less trustworthy, will gladly step in.
America is not getting dumber. America is getting harder to understand.
And journalists, perhaps more than any other profession, must rise to meet that reality. Not with louder takes or quicker posts, but with reporting that slows the world down just enough for people to find their footing. With writing that shows what matters and why. With humility about what we know and thoroughness about how we find out.
In an era of cognitive overload, the boldest act a journalist can take is to prioritize clarity.
Understanding is the service we provide.
Now more than ever, it is the service the country requires.
Meantime, I would like to get through one day, just one day, without looking too stupid. Most days, I’ve given up by noon.