Has Harry Potter made us smarter?
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Every day you hear word of how kids these days just don’t make the grade, but overall the population continues to get smarter, a phenomenon referred to as the Flynn effect. What scientists find most interesting about this occurrence is that it isn’t just happening at the bottom of the intelligence curve where improvements in nutrition and educational access could explain the difference; even the top five percent of the population is getting more intelligent and that could be due to the very things we love to hate the most: how we choose to entertain ourselves.
In the last century, scores on IQ tests have shown improvement across the population in the following ways:
1) Scores have increased the most on the problem-solving portion of intelligence tests.
2) Verbal intelligence has remained relatively flat, while non-verbal scores continue to rise.
3) Performance gains have occurred across all age groups.
4) The rise in scores exists primarily on those tests with content that does not appear to be easily learned.
Basically, our abstract thinking skills continue to rise. Could it be that the complex plots of things like Harry Potter or World of Warcraft as well as widespread use of the internet has made untangling problems easier? Science has yet to provide an answer, but in the mean time, you have the perfect excuse to catch a flick or play a game or two.
Full story at Wired.
Photo credit: Fotolia
