Is Gen Alpha Smarter Than Gen Z? What the Data Says

5 min read · IQ Tester

Is Gen Alpha smarter than Gen Z? Honestly, nobody can say yet. Most of Gen Alpha (born roughly 2010 onward) are still kids, so there's no fair IQ comparison with Gen Z. What the data does show is mixed: average IQ scores rose for most of the 20th century, that rise has slowed or reversed in some countries, and school test scores dipped in many places around the pandemic.

If the generational debate has you wondering where you stand, IQ Tester checks four kinds of reasoning and shows your strong and weak spots: Find my weak spots.

Is Gen Alpha smarter than Gen Z?

The question blows up on TikTok and Reddit every few months. Usually it's Gen Z roasting "iPad kids" who say "skibidi," and Gen Alpha clapping back that Gen Z can't do anything without ChatGPT. Fun. Not data.

Here's the fair version:

• Gen Z: born roughly 1997 to 2012. Most are now teens or adults.
• Gen Alpha: born roughly 2010 to the mid-2020s. The oldest are in middle school or early high school (Year 9/10 in the UK, grade 9/10 in Canada).
• The overlap: the boundary years are blurry, and generation labels are marketing categories, not science.

You can't compare a group of 10-year-olds to a group of 22-year-olds on intelligence and call it a result. Kids' reasoning keeps developing through the teen years. So "gen alpha not smarter than gen z" and "gen alpha smarter than gen z" are both premature takes.

What test scores actually show

We don't have Gen Alpha IQ data at scale. But there are school-test trends people point to.

School test scores

• The US NAEP (often called the Nation's Report Card) recorded notable drops in reading and math for 9-year-olds between 2020 and 2022.
• The OECD's PISA 2022 results showed math scores falling in many participating countries compared with 2018.

Important caveats:

• These are school achievement tests, not IQ tests. They measure what students have been taught, which the pandemic disrupted heavily.
• Some of the kids in those samples are Gen Z, some Gen Alpha, depending on the year and age.
• A dip after school closures tells you about lost learning time, not a generation's brainpower.

So what's the honest read?

The Flynn effect, slowing down

The Flynn effect is the finding that average IQ scores rose steadily across the 20th century in many countries, roughly a few points per decade. That's why IQ tests have to be re-normed every so often.

The plot twist: in some countries, the gains have stalled or reversed. A widely cited 2018 study by Bratsberg and Rogeberg, using Norwegian military conscription data, found IQ scores declining for men born after the mid-1970s, and showed the decline appeared within families, which points to environmental causes rather than who was having kids.

What does that mean for Gen Alpha IQ vs Gen Z? It means the "every generation is smarter" story isn't guaranteed anymore. It doesn't mean Gen Alpha is less intelligent. We go deeper into how this hits your own generation in our Flynn effect and Gen Z post.

Screens, attention and reading

This is the part everyone feels is the answer. It's more nuanced.

What's reasonable to worry about

• Sleep: screens late at night cut into sleep, and sleep matters for memory and focus.
• Long-form reading: reading whole books builds vocabulary and stamina. If short videos replace that, those skills get less practice.
• Constant switching: short-form feeds reward quick switching, which can make one long task feel harder.

What's overhyped

• "Brain rot" as literal damage. It's a joke. See our brainrot words list for what the slang actually means.
• One app ruining a generation. Kids' outcomes depend on a lot: school, sleep, family, money, friends.
• Gaming = dumb. Plenty of games demand planning, pattern spotting and strategy.

Gen Alpha's real advantages

Gen Alpha has grown up with search, translation, coding tools and learning videos for every topic. Being good at finding information is a real skill. The question is whether they also build the slower skills: reading deeply, reasoning through problems step by step, remembering without a device.

Gen Alpha vs millennials

Is Gen Alpha smarter than millennials? Same problem: you're comparing kids with people in their 30s and 40s. Some fair points:

• Millennials grew up during the tail end of strong Flynn-effect gains in many countries.
• Millennials learned the internet; Gen Alpha was born into it.
• Each generation gets roasted by the one before. Millennials were "the avocado toast generation." Gen Z was the "Tide Pod generation." It's a tradition.

Is Gen Alpha the smartest generation, or smarter than previous generations? Nobody can call it yet. Ask again in 2040.

What makes any generation smarter

Here's what research has linked to better outcomes across generations, and none of it is about birth year:

1. Schooling: more and better education.
2. Nutrition and health: big drivers of the original Flynn effect gains, according to many researchers.
3. Sleep: underrated, free.
4. Reading: lots of it, including long stuff.
5. Practice with abstract thinking: puzzles, math, patterns, logic.
6. Curiosity: asking "why," not just "what."

Basically: your habits matter more than your generation label.

The generational debate is mostly vibes, and judging your own thinking is just as vibe-heavy. IQ Tester gives you something concrete: 20 untimed questions across number series, verbal analogy, logic and pattern, scored on the usual mean-100 scale. It shows no percentile until real norms exist, which is the honest way to do it. Find my weak spots

Settle the gen debate with your own result

Forget which generation is smarter on average and find out what you're strong at. Take IQ Tester's 20 untimed questions to see your band and three of your four category strengths for free, then challenge a younger sibling or older cousin head-to-head and share the card.

Find my weak spots

FAQ

Is Gen Alpha smarter than Gen Z?

There's no solid evidence either way yet. Most of Gen Alpha are still children, so fair IQ comparisons with Gen Z aren't possible. School test scores dipped around the pandemic, but that reflects lost learning, not intelligence.

Is Gen Alpha the smartest generation?

No one can say. Generations are fuzzy categories, and the data on Gen Alpha's adult abilities doesn't exist yet because they haven't grown up.

Is there a Gen Alpha IQ decline?

Not one that's been measured. Some countries have seen IQ gains stall or reverse among people born from the 1970s onward, which is sometimes called the reverse Flynn effect, but there's no large Gen Alpha IQ dataset.

What does Reddit think about Gen Alpha vs Gen Z intelligence?

Reddit threads are mostly jokes and personal stories about "iPad kids" or Gen Z ChatGPT use. They're entertaining but not evidence.

Do screens lower IQ?

It's not that simple. Late-night screen time can hurt sleep and focus, and heavy short-form use may crowd out reading, but research doesn't show screens simply lowering IQ across a generation.