Global high school test scores plummet to 20 year low as AI and social media rot student brains

It’s a brain rot pandemic!Students worldwide are getting dumber, with scores from a sweeping exam issued to teens around the globe tanking to 20-year lows — and tech like AI and social media may be behind the brain-rotting culprits.Reading and mathematics scores plummeted nearly 20 points on the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a test administered every three years to 15-year-olds across the globe and taken this year by 760,000 kids in 91 countries.And those score drops were merely the latest low point in a two-decade trend of shocking decline — mathematics scores have slipped on almost every PISA test since 2006 to drop 32 points during that time, while reading scores sank 34 points since 2000.Science scores also dropped during that period, though less severely — with a drop of 17 points since 2006, according to data from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which administers the test considered an indicator of global student aptitude by experts and lawmakers.But most disturbing to experts were the dismal 2025 reading scores, which are generally correlated to students’ problem-solving skills across all other academic fields — and the scores indicated many students today are reading at levels roughly a whole school year behind where they used to.And the OECD data pointed to an obvious culprit behind the frightening phenomenon — students who regularly use AI and social media performed far worse on tests than those who don’t.“In reading, more screen time and less reading for pleasure ​have gone hand in hand with weaker results,” OECD secretary-general Mathias Cormann told reporters, according to Reuters.“We’re also seeing more hasty reading, students rushing through a text and giving a quick wrong answer.”A mere three countries where AI was widely accessible saw their reading scores increase, as well as just four in mathematics and five in science, OECD found.And the actual score di...