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.
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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.
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