Ep. 369: Why Are We Getting Dumber? A Debate.

Deep Questions with Cal Newport

Cal Newport

Education, Self-improvement, Technology

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2025

⏱️ 93 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

IQ scores had been steadily rising since WWII. But, more recently, this phenomenon has stopped. Since 2010, we’ve actually been getting dumber. In this episode, Cal gets into the common theories for why this is true before offering his own take, which leads to some practical takeaways to help you thrive in an increasingly stupider world. He then answers listener questions and talks about something he read recently. Below are the questions covered in today's episode (with their timestamps). Get your questions answered by Cal! Here’s the link: bit.ly/3U3sTvo Video from today’s episode: youtube.com/calnewportmedia Deep Dive: I Want Work-Life Balance. Am I Doomed to Mediocrity? [0:41] How can a west coast executive schedule deep work despite constant meetings with east coast colleagues? [37:14] Is it bad that I fill all of my quiet moments with media? [41:04] How can I focus on personal projects? [46:24] How should a software engineer transition to consulting? [53:05] How should a former lawyer update her systems now that she’s a professor? [56:43] CASE STUDY: A songwriter works deep and slow [1:06:43] CALL: Getting out of the weeds [1:14:04] WHAT I’M READING: Who is still against school cell phone bans? [1:23:28] Links: Buy Cal’s latest book, “Slow Productivity” at calnewport.com/slowGet a signed copy of Cal’s “Slow Productivity” at peoplesbooktakoma.com/event/cal-newport/Cal’s monthly book directory: bramses.notion.site/059db2641def4a88988b4d2cee4657ba?sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156youtube.com/watch?v=u4jW8MOxIKYrebeccaschiffman.com/beachvacationrebeccaschiffman.bandcamp.comnytimes.com/2025/03/21/nyregion/school-cell-phone-ban-nyc.html Thanks to our Sponsors: expressvpn.com/deeporacle.com/deepquestionsindeed.com/deepvanta.com/deepquestions Thanks to Jesse Miller for production, Jay Kerstens for the intro music, and Mark Miles for mastering. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I recently stumbled across a fascinating 2024 essay written by a Norwegian psychology professor.
0:11.0	In this essay, he talks about how he was asked to teach a course about intelligence, and he was excited about this because he used to teach that class a lot, but had it recently.
0:21.9	So he thought what he would do is he would open this class the way he always had before
0:25.9	by talking about the so-called Flynn effect, which is this observation, originally made by
0:32.3	James Flynn, that IQs worldwide have been rising since roughly the post-World War II period.
0:41.8	So here's what the professor wrote in his essay.
0:44.7	The Flynn effect has been rising steadily for so long that I thought I'd bring an updated graph.
0:49.7	I'd update a graph to 2024 numbers because it's always fun to tell students that their generation
0:54.3	is the smartest people who had ever lived. But then he added those new numbers to his old chart of rising IQs and was floored by what he discovered. IQs weren't going up anymore. And not only had IQ increases slowed down in recent years, IQ scores have begun to decrease.
1:14.5	His students, And not only had IQ increases slowed down in recent years, IQ scores had begun to decrease.
1:14.4	His students were not the smartest generation to have ever lived.
1:17.8	They were getting dumber.
1:19.4	Today, I want to talk about this so-called reverse Flynn effect.
1:23.6	There are some convincing arguments for why this is happening, and I want to talk about these,
1:27.5	but my main purpose is to then introduce an additional factor that I think is getting overlooked,
1:32.1	but once we recognize this additional factor, it will give you some compelling opportunities
1:37.0	for getting ahead in an increasingly stupid world.
1:41.8	I'm Cal Newport, and this is Deep Questions.
1:56.7	Today's episode, why are we getting dumber and what you should do about it?
2:04.5	All right, let's start by trying to verify this idea that IQ scores are actually now going down.
2:11.8	There have been multiple different studies that have gathered information on IQ in multiple
2:16.4	different ways that seem to be showing something similar.
	...

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