Why GEN Z is failing where their parents did not – and …

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 …

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.

“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. https://nypost.com/2026/02/07/us-news/gen-z-the-first-generation-officially-dubbed-dumber-than-the-last/ 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.” 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. https://thefederalist.com/2026/02/13/gen-z-is-dumber-thanks-to-adults-saturating-their-lives-with-screens/ 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. Technology does not elevate human intelligence.When misused, it degrades cognitive development. History shows that civilizations collapse not from lack of innovation, but from erosion of human discipline, character, and moral coherence. 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. 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.

The role of education is intellectual empowerment, not psychological engineering. A society that silences biological and scientific truth destroys its own capacity for rational governance. Civilizations flourished because both worked together. Complimented each other. Today, it has been made fashionable to compete against each other. When natural human complementarity is replaced by ideological conflict, family stability collapses, and social fragmentation accelerates.

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. Every major civilizational collapse in history — Roman, Greek, Persian, Mayan — was preceded by family disintegration, moral erosion, and identity destabilization. Not because Gen Z is weak — but because their psychological environment was corrupted.

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. 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.

Summary

This report covers the latest developments in artificial intelligence. The information presented highlights key changes and updates that are relevant to those following this topic.

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