Checks out, really.
Oh, that famous Journal called Reader’s Digest.
Here’s the original article: https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwx273
Abstract:
We investigated the cross-sectional and prospective associations between different sedentary behaviors and cognitive function in a large sample of adults with data stored in the UK Biobank. Baseline data were available for 502,643 participants (2006–2010, United Kingdom). Cognitive tests included prospective memory (baseline only: n = 171,585), visual-spatial memory (round 1: n = 483,832; round 2: n = 482,762), fluid intelligence (n = 165,492), and short-term numeric memory (n = 50,370). After a mean period of 5.3 years, participants (numbering from 12,091 to 114,373, depending on the test) also provided follow-up cognitive data. Sedentary behaviors (television viewing, driving, and nonoccupational computer-use time) were measured at baseline. At baseline, both television viewing and driving time were inversely associated with cognitive function across all outcomes (e.g., for each additional hour spent watching television, the total number of correct answers in the fluid intelligence test was 0.15 (99% confidence interval: 0.14, 0.16) lower. Computer-use time was positively associated with cognitive function across all outcomes. Both television viewing and driving time at baseline were positively associated with the odds of having cognitive decline at follow-up across most outcomes. Conversely, computer-use time at baseline was inversely associated with the odds of having cognitive decline at follow-up across most outcomes. This study supports health policies designed to reduce television viewing and driving in adults.
Causality… Stupid people drive more.
IQ is not an objective measure of intelligence. Nothing can be because intelligence is colloquial and subjective. If I told you that I had an instrument that could objectively rank all humanity by beauty, smart people would see the problem immediately.
IQ depends on their being one kind of underlying intelligence. No such thing as ‘book smarts’ or ‘street smarts’. Emotional intelligence is also fake. Just logical problem solving and spacial recognition.
IQ is racist. IQ consistently shows that black Americans have lower IQ than other groups. White supremacists love this fact because they view it as scientific evidence that black people are inferior.
“Race” is biologically incoherent, but “black American” is the most incoherent of all. Barack Obama is a famous black American. But his mama is a white lady named Durham and her people are British. In the Jim Crow era South, 1/16 black ancestry made you 100% legally black. That’s one great-grandparent. White and black Americans have been cross pollinating for 400years. Sometimes even consensually.
“Black American” is not a coherent biological category. Therefore, when IQ tests mark differences between these groups, it can ONLY be measuring social difference because their is no biological explanation.
IQ is not an objective measure of intelligence and any study based on it is faulty.
The original article wasn’t talking about IQ at all - Reader’s Digest was oversimplifying the research.
Cognitive tests included prospective memory (baseline only: n = 171,585), visual-spatial memory (round 1: n = 483,832; round 2: n = 482,762), fluid intelligence (n = 165,492), and short-term numeric memory (n = 50,370).
IQ is a reasonably effective metric of certain kinds of intelligence. It doesn’t measure all intelligence and has some caveats, but it still highly correlates with certain abilities of one’s brain. IQ decreasing over time in the same subject is a cause for alarm.
And you absolutely can objectively measure certain types of beauty. If you managed to rank all of humanity by facial symmetry, I’d think you were a bit weird, but I wouldn’t say that you were wrong.