Clues Are Everywhere, Society Is Growing Stupider
- James Marriott, Washington Post
... Studies have shown declines in IQ over the past two decades, with the sharpest drops among age brackets that use their phones the most.
... Entertainment and the arts are undergoing what might be termed a Great Simplification.
... complexity seems to be rapidly draining out of culture.
The same relentless pressures toward simplification are at work in almost every creative industry.
... lyrics are becoming simpler, more repetitive and less rich in their vocabulary. Another study suggests that melodies are becoming less complex, too.
... Books are getting simpler and easier to read. An Economist analysis of New York Times best-selling books from the 1930s to the 2020s found that “sentences in popular books have contracted by almost a third since the 1930s.”
... culture risks being transformed into a ... wasteland. ...
