We are getting smarter. Or, we are getting dumber.

Life in the Boomer Lane, in an attempt to distract herself from the current havoc being wreaked around the planet by 1) people  2) infectious disease and 3) Bob McDonald, turned, instead, to psychological research to give her the lift she deserves. Researchers, who are immune to the flotsam and jetsam of political, religious, and viral/bacterial extremism, can concentrate, instead, on topics such as fruit bat fellatio.

What she found is that:

1. Wait persons get bigger tips when they leave a mint on the table, along with the the check.

2. Having a  snack can stave off an argument between married people.

3. Humans are getting smarter over time.

While no one has to convince LBL that the addition of some form of snack product can improve any situation except, perhaps, obesity, any observation of either TV viewing habits or motorists on the road would  not lead the average person to conclude that humans are getting smarter. For that reason, she did more research and learned that we are getting smarter.  We are also getting dumber.

Reasons we are getting smarter:

1. We now know how to take tests, especially since many schools prepare students for test taking and, after several months, over half of all students can identify the difference between an “a” a “b” a “c” and a “d.”  Seventy-five percent can effectively fill in the tiny circles next to the answers they choose, without breaking off the tip of their pencils. Ten percent of those still choose more than one circle to fill in.

2. We all own smart phones, smart tablets, smart appliances, and wear clothing constructed of smart fabrics.  So, whether we are smart or not, doesn’t really matter anymore.

3. We all eat food that has been genetically modified, injected with super vitamins and minerals, and is produced by animals who live in tiny cages and spend all of their time in intellectual pursuits.

4. Previous generations had to go to the library and follow an exhausting scenario in order to get information about anything. They had to thumb through card catalogs, write silly numbers down with little periods in random places, and then find those books in the “stacks.”  Since 1937,  It is estimated that thousands of people are still lost in the stacks.

5. If you scored people a century ago against today’s norms, they’d have an IQ of 70, while if you score us against their norms, we’d have an average IQ of 130. An estimated 97% of all current school-age children have been identified as gifted.  Parents of the remaining 3% have filed lawsuits against school systems, charging bogus results.

Reasons we are getting dumber:

1. The word “teenager” didn’t exist until 1950.  Before that, teenagers were simply people who, like all other large people on the planet, were expected to tie their own shoes and then prepare for gainful employment. Now, we have an entire population of large people who are legally permitted to operate machines weighing thousands of lbs but who don’t know that we have a President.

2. A recent study by Cambridge University found that mankind is significantly shrinking in size, both in terms of body mass and brain mass. We are now 10% shorter and smaller than out hunter-gatherer ancestors. The results have been a boon to the donut and fast food industry.

3. A recent study from the University of Pittsburgh has found that letting babies “cry it out” can lead to permanent brain damage. Parents who don’t let babies cry it out, suffer brain damage themselves. Therefore, everyone is getting dumber.

4. If you asked someone in the 19th century the relationship between a dog and a hare, they’d likely go with something simple and concrete, based on their real-life experience with the two animals. Today, people in this complex, fast-moving world are taught to think more abstractly. A modern person would be more likely to say that a dog is a domesticated mammal and friend to mankind. The answer would stop there, as anyone born after 1952 would have no idea what a hare was.

5. New research suggests that Westerners have lost 14 IQ points since the Victorian era. Most post-menopausal women have, as yet, been unable to find theirs.