Boomers best on vocab

And why the youth can no longer spell.

Boomer here, and I must confess that yes, I was the spelling champ in my high school etymology class. Just won pencils, no big buck$. But admittedly, the rank and title were nice.

An interesting study from the social sciences examined the time course to develop different aspects of ‘knowledge’ and made comparisons across generational cohorts. For vocabulary skill, representing ‘Crystallized Knowledge’, they used the General Social Survey and then compared the data to online web-based tests available to the public.

"At any given age, you're getting better at some things, you're getting worse at some other things, and you're at a plateau at some other things. There's probably not one age at which you're peak on most things, much less all of them," - Joshua Hartshorne

"It paints a different picture of the way we change over the lifespan than psychology and neuroscience have traditionally painted," - Laura Germine

Online data from ~ 50,000 subjects showed that cognitive skills excelled at different ages. Raw speed in processing peaks in late teens, short-term memory improves until mid twenties, then drops around age 35. Emotional IQ peaks in middle age. However, vocabulary skills, continue to improve as respondents age, through to 70.

The researchers broke down the GSS data archive by decade to better assess vocabulary skills:

1974 through 1987, peak occurred at ~ 40.

1988 through 1997, peak occurred at ~ 50,

1998 through 2012, peak occurred at ~ 65

"Baby boomers "are the most educated generation of all generations that have ever retired," - Laura Germine

AOL instant messaging late 90’s then the iPhone arrives, 2008.

What can explain these generational differences in cognitive skills? Of interest is the massive impact of technology that began in the mid 90’s. Millennials were the first adopters.

America On Line sent messages to buddy list, live in real time. Almost immediately, English language degenerated into shortened codes of text and numbers.

As a stubborn Boomer who wrote extensively for science journals and was often an editor, I never capitulated to this genre. And also why I aways preferred email to communicate. Only really used texting when picking up folks at the airport. I like to think that I can still spell [I turn off spell check] but certainly would no longer win any contests.

As for the younger generations who never valued the language, and more likely spent more of their time computer coding, they likely put little effort into the learning of vocabulary and spelling it correctly. I just hope our language does not go extinct.

In an earlier newsletter, I reported on the effects of browsers and internet searching on our memory functions:

Google Brain

The peak in short term memory at age 25-35 years certainly coincided with my personal history. Intensive work in both medicine and research consumed my time and all cognitive functions. But with today’s information available from Google [and now ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence] I cannot seem to goad my brain into memorizing what it thinks it can instead look up via search engine. So once again, is this due to timelines of brain development, or cultural impact, or both?

Note too, that ‘social understanding’ knowledge peaks at age 45-55 years. Is this why millennials all seem so ‘Aspergy’? Socially, they often haven’t a clue. This cohort will start to enter their 40’s next year, so maybe they will improve over time. One can only hope. But an alternative interpretation could be that the current 45 - 55 yr cohort, that fed into that data analysis, consists of the Gen-X-ers, who preceded the internet explosion into our personal lives. Thus, it could then be a cultural phenomenon, and may not carry over to the younger cohort, in this age of MetaVerse.

Well, that would make me sad.

Sigh.

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REFERENCES

A Powell. Peak cognitive skills not strictly a feature of youth, study finds. MARCH 20, 2015. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-03-peak-cognitive-skills-strictly-feature.html

A Trafton. Neuroscientists find that different parts of the brain work best at different ages (2015, March 6) https://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-03-neuroscientists- brain-ages.html