Has human intelligence declined in the internet age?

Has human intelligence declined in the internet age?

Is it really true that people used to think better? The perception that our collective intelligence has deteriorated in the digital era is nothing new, but it resurges with force every so often. Those who defend this thesis point to several fronts: language is becoming impoverished – it is hard to string together a sentence longer than ten words – the ability to concentrate is fading away, and popular culture has turned into a dumping ground for disposable products.

Technology, far from liberating us, would have created a dependency comparable to the Matrix. The sequence is familiar: occasional internet, social media, smartphones, virtual reality, artificial intelligence that thinks for us. The next step, according to the most pessimistic, would be direct connection through brain implants. Meanwhile, babies grow up hypnotized by screens from their first year, and the craft knowledge passed down by earlier generations is being lost, as the archives of Monesma document.

But not everyone agrees. Some point out that necessity sharpens the mind: without the comfort of a click, people had to solve problems with limited resources. And in music, the complexity of bands like Led Zeppelin or Héroes del Silencio is missed compared with today's industrial production. Art, the argument goes, is a reliable thermometer of a society's intellectual health.

The paradox is that this debate is being waged on devices that will probably be obsolete in three years. What does not change is the suspicion that the more answers we have, the fewer questions we ask. And that, surely, is not a good sign.