Are people truly getting dumber?

That's the key right there.

When I was a kid I had a stay at home dad. He taught me how to tell time, how to measure, how to write my letters, etc. All in practical ways during the days so I could help him. One day he asked me to come get him out of the garden at 11:15 (I was three, I don't know why I remember this so vividly) but I didn't know how to tell when it was 11:15, so we had a quick lesson on reading the analog clock and the digital clock. He'd be planning dinner and ask me to write an ingredient down on the shopping list, I wouldn't know how to spell the word so he would teach me. Just little practical ways of learning basic life skills. That doesn't always seem to happen much anymore. Now it's "Alexa, add milk to my grocery list" and our phones are the clocks. And don't get me started on the parents I know that think it's not their job to teach their kids this stuff because that's what school is for...

I think this is a large part of it. Basic skills are not being passed on, whether it's through school or parents.

And yes, people are getting dumber. I swear, people are forgetting the basic rules of the road. My biggest annoyance with drivers after cutting through parking lots is 4-way stops. Too many people don't obey them, don't know how they work, or just don't care. I pulled up one yesterday where a car was stopped and was still stopped after I went. The car behind them honked at them and they went so it wasn't a car issue, just idiot driver.

I agree that we forget skills that we don't use often.

One aspect of technology that hasn't been mentioned is that people can unknowingly broadcast their dumb mistakes to thousands of people, like in the product review of the scale, and then others can copy and paste them wherever. Maybe our dumb mistakes used to be a little more private?

 I am one of those people not good with working out measurements or weights.

When I first got together with my husband we used to go to a fruit and veg market where you had to ask for a pound of tomatoes or whatever. Previously I had been used to just picking up ready filled bags in the supermarket so learning weights was all new to me.

I just stood there with my mind blank thinking how do people know these things , like how many tomatoes are in a pound ?

So I just guessed and got everything wrong and in the end I had to ask them to show me how many of whatever veg I wanted would look like when in the scales, for everything , every single time.

From then on each week , the couple that used to sell the fruit and veg would start laughing (in a nice way) when they saw me approach and call me the trainee housewife.

Americans are.

I cannot find the article now, but I was stunned to find out that the average IQ is no longer 100. It is now 99. I know I read it in the last few months.

And the ruler thing, maps, change, etc is real.

Then again, if I have a tech issue, I give it to one of my sons. So, while we really are becoming less intelligent, the skill sets we need are also changing. A lot of young people don’t use cash at all. My sons tease me about my antiquated form of payment.

I think it's two things: our reliance more and more on technology to solve basic questions that we used to have to do ourselves. I'm 61. I can count change back, use a map to find a location easily, have a yardstick and measuring tapes. I'm old school because when it comes to technology because I'm tech challenged. I believe technology is wonderful but I also believe it's important to know the "old fashioned" way to do something in case one day that technology isn't available. I think people are relying too much on technology and it especially worrisome when they don't bother to learn how to figure out things for themselves. 

The other thing I think that is the problem is that our school systems are becoming worse and worse in quality. I am not blaming the teachers at all!  I am blaming the people much higher up. Think about the education our parents (folks in their 80's) received when they graduated high school vs. the education people are getting today when they graduate high school on average in the USA. I think one article compared that people who graduated high school in the late 1950's received an education equal to what constitutes a 2 year college degree today. And that's not even taking into account those students who don't do their own work but either have other people answer their homework questions or consult Google. How on earth can they learn anything doing that? Sure we had encyclopedias back in my time, but the "cheating is wrong" was so ingrained in me by my parents that I never could have done it unless the homework said it was okay to consult other sources for the answers. 

Regarding technology my dream is to one day sail a sailboat across oceans to other countries and islands by myself. When I go I won't be relying on electronic devices alone to tell me where I am at sea. Obviously they are a wonderful invention and a labor saving device, but what if one day that technology goes down? I intend to have not only one but a back up sextant on board and know how to use it. A sextant is a tool that sailors for celestial navigation. Using the sun or the stars you can plot your course without using any technology. 

Another example is our upcoming vacation on St. John USVI. It's a small island-just 9 miles long and 5 miles wide. There is almost no GPS on the island. Yes, it's small so it isn't hard to get lost, but since 2/3 of the park is National Park it has a lot of trails on it maintained by the National Park some of which I hope to hike. Knowing how to read a map and a compass will come in very handy here. Map reading I've got down. Compass reading I used to know how to do, but I have to brush up on my skills before we leave, something I very much intend to do and practice. 

Yep….

”how many are in a dozen?”

🤦🏻‍♀️

Now as for the difficulties with measurements, and fractions of measurements...... y'all know that if you caught up with the rest of the world and converted to metric, you wouldn't have these problems right?!


(Backing out of this thread now before some Imperial lover has my guts for garters.......)

Omg this is so true. 

I do know people don’t read very carefully.

I've been noticing that people not only don't read carefully, they just don't read. I have the following conversations with the general public on the phone at work multiple times per week:

Person: "Hi, I got a letter from your office"
Me:       "Ok, how can I help you?"
Person:  "I'm confused, I don't know what this letter means"
Me:        "No problem, I'm sure I can help you, what does the letter say?"
Person:  "I don't know, I don't understand it"
Me:        "Is it titled at the top?"
Person:   "It's something to do with taxes I guess"
Me:        "Can you read it to me?"
Person:   "I told you, I don't understand it"
Me:        "Can you read the first couple of sentences to me so I know which letter we sent you and what the situation is?"

It goes on and on. They literally cannot or will not read the letter. The letter which will inevitably explain the situation much better than I can anyway. But it is like pulling teeth to just simply get them to identify what they got in the mail. It drives me insane.

I agree completely with what I’ve bolded above. I think this is a big part of the problem. It isn’t that kids today aren’t being taught things. It’s that far too many people of all ages don’t want to take the time to stop, think and figure things out for themselves.

I think it's like many other things----if you don't use a skill, you lose the skill. And I think some people are more apt to lose skills than other---or they lose them faster. It seems like some people learn something, and they can pick it right back up after years away from it, but that's not me at all.

But even I lose info and ability when I'm not using it. I took years of French, but have retained almost none of it, because I have no reason to speak French. Right now, if I were to decide I wanted to speak French again, I'd be starting from scratch, knowing no more than a student who never took a single lesson.

Same with sign language. At different points in my life, I had people who I signed with. All I remember now is the alphabet, and maybe 6 or so other signs.

Also, musical instruments--I can no longer play any, despite having spent time learning to play 3 different ones in the past.

So, now if you move on to simpler things, like measurements, etc., I've noticed my kids are taught things in school, but they don't continue to use those skills after the unit is over. They learned cursive, but are not required to use it. They learned measurements and how to tell time, but again, even in school, they aren't being asked to use those skills. When I was in school we were able to spend more time reinforcing those things than they can now. And then I lived in a time when we used those skills more day to day, so I remember them. Of course, again, I still use those on a daily basis, as well.

So if our kids barely touch on certain things in school, and they have no interest that involve the skills outside of school, I can see how they lose them. One of my kids is very into art, but has the lousiest scissor skills. I'm always shocked at how terrible they are with a pair of scissors. They leave me in the dust with an Exacto knife though. I stink at doing anything with an Exacto knife. But I spent ages in school cutting things. And my kids spent very little time doing that.

I am the dumb math person but it’s not 100% my fault. I really blame the jacked up education system in the US. When we moved from the west coast to the east, I was leaving 3rd grade. We had not learned fractions, decimals and percentages in CA, those started in 4th grade. When I got to CT for the start of 4th, they were already past that, they were taught in 3rd grade. I lost about 6 months worth of education just by moving. I could never catch up with all of it.
I’ve learned a few things helping my kids with math homework but I’m not even close to proficient at it. My DH is the math king though, he’s really good with numbers.

Now maps I can do. We would drive across country every time we moved and my dad always took a different route so he could hit as many states as possible. So my brother and I would map out the route for the next day. We also used the driving to learn our states and capitals. That was the one thing I was guaranteed to get right on the weekly spelling test in 5th grade, they were always bonus words.