Why GEN Z is failing where their parents did not – and why civilization must return to fundamentals
While the world debates the dangerous outcomes of ‘digital education,’ in Sri Lanka a silent campaign is underway. Educationists, policymakers, and self-proclaimed experts—often in partnership with international agencies including the UN—are promoting a plan that will digitalize the learning of 4 million Sri Lankan children. But whose interests are truly being served? Are these so-called educationists genuinely safeguarding the nation’s future, or are they conduits for foreign agendas seeking to reshape the identity, culture, and values of Sri Lankan youth?
Evidence now confirms what society is experiencing. A 2026 scientific assessment presented to the U.S. Congress by neuroscientist Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath confirms something unprecedented in modern history: Gen Z is the first generation to perform worse cognitively and academically than their parents. This assessment was presented before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, based on cross-national longitudinal cognitive testing data covering over 80 countries, making it one of the most comprehensive global analyses of generational cognitive performance ever conducted.
According to Horvath’s testimony, Gen Z underperforms across:
- attention
- memory
- literacy
- numeracy
- executive function
- general IQ
His research across 80 countries shows a clear trend:
“When digital technology becomes dominant in classrooms, cognitive performance declines”.
This mistake is exactly what Sri Lanka’s education ministry is proposing to do starting April 2026.
If Sri Lanka proceeds down this path, it risks institutionalizing the same cognitive decline now documented across Western education systems, repeating their mistakes instead of learning from their failures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd-_VDYit3U – Doctor Jared Cooney Horvath on How Screen Time Hurts Kids’ Cognitive Development. Sri Lanka’s education ministry must listen to this especially parents.
The core cause:
- excessive screen exposure + technology-mediated learning replacing deep human-led learning.
This is not opinion.
This is neuroscience and global academic data.
THIS CONFIRMS A DEEPER CIVILIZATIONAL CRISIS
Gen Z is the first generation since standardized cognitive testing began in the 1800s to perform worse than their parents
Declines were recorded in:
- Attention
- Memory
- Literacy
- Numeracy
- Executive function
- General IQ
The primary cause identified:
Overexposure to digital technology in education + algorithm-driven learning environments
This scientific finding perfectly aligns with what we are witnessing socially, psychologically, emotionally, and culturally:
Dr. Jared Cooney Horvath: “Even in schools, it doesn’t matter what the size of the screen is…and it doesn’t matter who bought it…All of these things are also going to hurt learning, which in turn are going to hurt our kids’ cognitive development.”
Full video here: https://www.c-span.org/program/senate…
This testimony directly challenges the global push especially by the UN to introduce digitize classrooms under the false promise of modernization.
The study of 80 nations shows, that early digital immersion weakens learning, memory consolidation, and impacts long-term intellectual development.
For the first time in modern history, a generation is showing visible decline in:
They were born into:
- hyper-technology
- ideological overload
- identity crisis
- dopamine-driven digital ecosystems
- entitlement culture – right-oriented
- collapsing family authority & declining morals/values of young parents
The result is:
- anxiety
- depression
- identity confusion
- social anger
- protest addiction
- emotional fragility
This is civilizational failure, not generational failure.
WHAT THE ANCIENTS BUILT — AND WHY IT LASTED
Ancient civilizations across Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe built societies on:
- duty before rights
- discipline before comfort
- wisdom before information
- family before state
- identity before ideology
- morality before law
They understood a fundamental truth:
- Strong individuals create strong families.
- Strong families create strong societies.
- Strong societies create lasting civilizations.
This truth is being systematically broken
They mastered:
- irrigation
- mathematics
- astronomy
- medicine
- governance
- architecture
- philosophy
- education
But not before they mastered the human mind.
They knew:
Civilization collapses not when technology fails,
but when character, discipline, and identity collapse.
These are qualities we see lacking in Gen Z today. It is no fault of theirs, it is because the educational system, university apparatus and even society has moved away from these value-based criteria.
Media and communication channels have much to shoulder blame.
They used their power of reach to misinform – misguide and misdirect people.
WHAT WE HAVE TODAY — AND WHY IT IS FAILING
We have:
- Artificial Intelligence without human wisdom
- biotechnology
- infinite data
- instant communication
Yet we also have:
- record anxiety
- rising depression
- identity chaos
- collapsing family structures
- emotional immaturity
- ideological extremism
We built smart machines — but made weaker humans.
That is not progress.
That is civilizational imbalance.
TECHNOLOGY WITHOUT HUMANITY IS WORTHLESS
This is not an anti-technology argument — it is a pro-human argument.
Dr. Horvath’s research proves:
Technology does not elevate human intelligence.
When misused, it degrades cognitive development.
Technology was meant to:
- strengthen thinking
- deepen learning
- enhance relationships
- increase productivity
Instead, it:
- replaced thinking
- shortened attention spans
- rewired dopamine systems
- weakened memory
- replaced human interaction
Gen Z became the first generation raised inside algorithms.
Technology did not adapt to them.
Their brains adapted to technology.
This produced:
- shallow thinking
- emotional volatility
- impulse-driven behavior
- poor resilience
- fragile attention
- Inability to critically assess and analyse – often resulting in going with the flow/trend
Smart tech + weak humans = civilizational suicide.
History shows that civilizations collapse not from lack of innovation, but from erosion of human discipline, character, and moral coherence.
IDENTITY ENGINEERING: THE MOST DANGEROUS EXPERIMENT OF OUR AGE
For all of history, civilizations understood:
- Sex is biological.
- Gender expression is cultural.
- Identity is anchored in reality.
Today, global ideological movements seek to:
- blur biological sex
- destabilize natural identity
- normalize identity confusion
- replace biology with ideology
This is presented as freedom.
But psychologically, it creates:
- confusion
- anxiety
- instability
- emotional distress
Instead of teaching children:
You are complete as you are,
they are taught:
You must question your own biology.
This destabilizes the deepest foundation of mental health — identity certainty, feeling sense of belonging and they are led to paths that will destroy them – physically & psychologically.
No society can maintain psychological stability when it systematically teaches children to distrust their own biology.
CHILDHOOD MEDICALIZATION: WHEN ACTIVISM BECOMES INDUSTRY
Children naturally experience:
- emotional turbulence
- identity questioning
- body discomfort during puberty – hormonal changes
- psychological exploration
These phases were once guided by:
- parental wisdom
- patience
- maturity
- cultural stability
Today, ideology increasingly:
- labels confusion
- medicalizes development
- politicizes identity
- introduces irreversible interventions
This creates:
- lifelong medical dependency
- irreversible biological changes
- psychological regret
- emotional trauma
When pharmaceutical systems, surgical industries, media sensationalism, corporate branding, and ideological activism merge, children and childhood becomes a marketplace.
This is not compassion.
This is institutionalized recklessness – targeting the child.
Future generations will judge this era not by its technological achievements, but by how recklessly it experimented on children in the name of ideology and profit.
CLASSROOM IDEOLOGY: CSE & IDENTITY POLITICS IN EDUCATION
Schools once existed to teach:
- literacy
- logic
- discipline
- ethics
- critical thinking
Now, classrooms increasingly transmit:
- identity ideology
- sexual frameworks
- political activism
- emotional validation culture
This:
- confuses childhood development
- destabilizes identity formation
- weakens parental authority
- politicizes education
Education must build minds — not manufacture identities.
The role of education is intellectual empowerment, not psychological engineering.
The adults too are now targets.
DEI & CORPORATE IDEOLOGY: CONTROL THROUGH COMPLIANCE
DEI frameworks increasingly:
- enforce ideological conformity
- silence biological discussion
- punish dissent
- override scientific debate
This transforms:
- workplaces into ideological zones
- corporations into moral police
- society into psychological control systems
True inclusion respects:
- diversity of thought
- scientific inquiry
- open debate
Not ideological obedience.
A society that silences biological and scientific truth destroys its own capacity for rational governance.
THE DESTRUCTION OF FEMININITY & MASCULINITY
Masculinity built:
- courage
- leadership
- protection
- sacrifice
- resilience
Femininity built:
- emotional intelligence
- compassion
- nurturing
- stability
- moral grounding
Civilizations flourished because both worked together. Complimented each other. Today, it has been made fashionable to compete against each other.
Today, ideology:
- attacks masculinity – attempts to neutralize masculine traits
- destabilizes femininity – attempts to remove the softer side of the female
- encourages biological rejection
- reframes natural roles as oppression – attempts to relocate women out of the home.
This creates:
- confused boys
- insecure girls
- unstable families
- fragile societies
A civilization that erases sexual identity erases its own foundation.
When natural human complementarity is replaced by ideological conflict, family stability collapses, and social fragmentation accelerates.
FROM DUTY TO ENTITLEMENT: HOW CHARACTER COLLAPSED
Ancient societies taught:
- duty before rights
- responsibility before privilege
- restraint before freedom
Modern culture teaches:
- rights before duty
- entitlement before effort
- validation before discipline
This reversal produced:
- grievance culture
- protest addiction
- anger escalation
- street violence
- chronic dissatisfaction – always blaming others not shortcomings of oneself.
When people believe:
- Society owes me,
but never ask:
- What do I owe society? frustration becomes inevitable.
That frustration explodes into:
- protests
- riots
- confrontation
- destruction
WHY GEN Z IS PROTESTING MORE THAN ANY GENERATION
Because they were raised on:
- entitlement
- emotional indulgence
- ideological grievance
- instant gratification
Not on:
- resilience
- discipline
- responsibility
- effort
When expectations are infinite and responsibility is zero, anger becomes unavoidable.
The so-called “youth-led” protests in Nepal, Bangladesh even Sri Lanka show how shortsighted their reactions are – destroying what the taxpayers eventually have to pay to rebuild, taking more loans, paying more interest when most of them don’t even have a job to take accountability themselves for the destruction they caused. Would any employer wish to employ reactionary-destructive youth?
Economic development requires stable, disciplined, accountable youth — not emotionally volatile ideological activists.
THE COLLAPSE OF FAMILY AUTHORITY
Parents once shaped children.
Now:
- social media shapes children
- influencers replace parents
- ideology replaces tradition
- algorithms replace wisdom
- Bills are being brought to punish the teachers and parents!
Family authority collapsed.
Children destabilized.
Social order weakened.
No civilization survives when the family collapses.
Every major civilizational collapse in history — Roman, Greek, Persian, Mayan — was preceded by family disintegration, moral erosion, and identity destabilization.
This is why pro-life must never be compromised.
WHY GEN Z FAILED WHERE THEIR PARENTS DID NOT
Not because Gen Z is weak —
but because their psychological environment was corrupted.
Their parents grew up with:
- discipline
- limits
- struggle
- responsibility
Gen Z grew up with:
- unlimited stimulation
- emotional overvalidation
- identity confusion
- ideological saturation
This destroyed:
- patience
- resilience
- emotional strength
- mental discipline
THE CIVILIZATIONAL RESET WE NEED
We must return to fundamentals.
Back to:
- duty before rights
- discipline before indulgence
- family before ideology
- biology before politics
- wisdom before information
- humanity before technology
This is not regression.
This is civilizational survival.
THE CORE CIVILIZATIONAL TRUTH
Technology cannot save a civilization that has lost its soul.
Ideology cannot replace biological reality.
Rights cannot replace responsibility.
Progress cannot erase wisdom.
Our ancestors built civilizations that lasted centuries.
We are building systems that may not survive decades.
Gen Z is not broken.
The civilization shaping them is.
And unless we restore:
- discipline
- identity clarity
- parental authority
- wisdom-based education
- moral grounding
- human-centered technology
we will not raise stronger generations —
we will accelerate civilizational collapse.
Before Sri Lanka entrusts its children to a digital classroom designed abroad, we must question the authority of those promoting it. Education is not merely about technology—it is about identity, history, heritage, values, and sovereignty. The push for digital education, disguised as progress, risks turning millions of young minds into passive recipients of foreign narratives. The politicians and so-called educationists championing this rollout must be held accountable: for every child, every lesson, every byte delivered under this scheme could reshape the soul of a nation into a generation severed from its roots, its culture, and its critical thinking, molding children into obedient consumers of globalized agendas rather than proud inheritors and defenders of Sri Lanka’s identity and heritage.
Shenali D Waduge
