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I think its tied to advancing technology internet, computers, smart phones

information is much faster

Having more information to learn has nothing to do with IQ.  
Also, the argument can be made that some tech makes us lazier, cognitively speaking.  Pre-cell phone, you probably committed 50+ phone numbers to memory.  Or at least 20 or so. Now?  Maybe 5?  

Skyscraper watch: Demolition crews move in for Midtown's tallest tower | Urbanize Atlanta
Skyscraper watch: Demolition crews move in for Midtown's tallest tower | Urbanize Atlanta

Happening near us, nothing taller has been built here since 1992, which is rather amazing to me.  We like watching demo a bit, it's fascinating to me how much "stuff" has to be hauled off, to somewhere.  A lot of concrete with rebar in it, and of course a lot of wood, roofing, windows, etc., all of it gets crunched.  I do wonder where it goes.

The trucks seems to haul off all the detritus mixed together.  I can see they could crush it and pull out anything magnetic.  Probably takes a lot of energy and makes for a lot of noise.  I guess then you have mixed "fill" that could be dumped ... in road construction???

I don't know if they worry about things like asbestos, some of the buildings they demo are pretty old, most from the 50s around here.  It's an amazing process, to me, and then construction starts of course and every bit of  the new building is trucked in from somewhere else.  "They" put up a 30 story apt bldg down the street in 17 months, I spoke with one of he contractors, he was very proud of that.  They were using a drone to inspect the building, said it was a lot more efficient.

Very nice apartments of course, not cheap.

Midtown Atlanta Apartments | Vireo Piedmont Park (vireoatlanta.com)

There is a concrete plant about 3 miles north of us, so we have concrete trucks running by daily and often.  I surmise colliding with one would be a bad thing.  

We were driving back from the mountains and I noted the four lane highway was mostly asphalt but some sections were concrete.  I assume they are more costly, I wondered why the difference.  Sure the concrete lasts longer, but if it's a better deal, why not have the whole stretch concrete?

There are exit/entrance ramps here to what once was I-85 built circa 1954 that are still the original concrete.  (The residual part that was I-85 has been paved over many times.  They left the old four lane freeway as a kind of local exit collector while the new freeway runs parallel a few miles with no exits.  It works for us as it provides several exits I can use depending on traffic.

Having more information to learn has nothing to do with IQ. 

I'm inclined to disagree here. Not that having more information to learn makes you smarter, but much like the nutrition example, that having the mental exercise of learning allows you to effectively "feed your brain" when you're young and allow it to reach its potential.

I will admit that I don't have scientific backing for that claim. Perhaps because it doesn't exist, or perhaps because I haven't looked. But my personal belief is that a lot of what we call "intelligence" is a sort of pattern-matching function that we each have in our brains. Some people have more horsepower for that computer and a higher IQ potential, sure, but *all* people have more ability to reach their potential if they are feeding their brain with more patterns, at an earlier age. 

Just as you won't be as tall as you "should" if you're malnourished as a child, I think you won't be as smart (as measured by IQ tests) as you "should" if you aren't exposed to intellectual stimulation at a young age and throughout your childhood. 

In 1923 a kid who grows up on the farm and isn't exposed to much information outside of going to the little red schoolhouse and talking to his parents (who don't read for leisure) is probably not going to reach his IQ potential. 

(One point: "more information" isn't the key. You can watch cable news and get tons of information and not get smarter; usually the opposite occurs. It's intellectual stimulation that is necessary, and I'm just saying that in a world with more access to information, you have more access to intellectual stimulation.)

Also, the argument can be made that some tech makes us lazier, cognitively speaking.  Pre-cell phone, you probably committed 50+ phone numbers to memory.  Or at least 20 or so. Now?  Maybe 5? 

This I do agree with, and it was brought up in the article itself as a potential cause. A good example is GPS navigation. It's made us more able to go where we want, but less able to figure out how to get there. 

Growing up I had to build a mental map of my surroundings. Obviously getting around my neighborhood didn't require GPS. But long before I started driving, I had observed enough of my parents that I knew the expressway structure around the entire Chicago metro area. Which helped me once when I got lost, at night, in an area I'd never been. I knew that I was within an enclosed area bounded by four expressways, and that all I had to do was keep going the same direction until I ran into one of them, and then I'd be able to find my way home. 

Kids now all have smartphones by the time they start driving, and can just punch the destination into Google Maps. 

But again, it ties into my previous point... If you're not feeding your brain with work it needs to accomplish, you're not going to reach your IQ potential. Having to figure out how to get from point A to point B using a map (or, god forbid, a Thomas Guide) is feeding your brain with work. It doesn't seem like much, but the more you do it, the more you get used to doing it. And IQ tests are basically a test of problem-solving, so those people who have more experience solving problems usually do better than those who don't. 

Personally, I'm really heartened that AI models have a tendency to hallucinate, and that they also have a propensity to develop their own languages and cut out human ability to interpret and intervene.  I'm feeling pretty great about the future of humanity.

This I do agree with, and it was brought up in the article itself as a potential cause. A good example is GPS navigation. It's made us more able to go where we want, but less able to figure out how to get there.

Growing up I had to build a mental map of my surroundings. Obviously getting around my neighborhood didn't require GPS. But long before I started driving, I had observed enough of my parents that I knew the expressway structure around the entire Chicago metro area. Which helped me once when I got lost, at night, in an area I'd never been. I knew that I was within an enclosed area bounded by four expressways, and that all I had to do was keep going the same direction until I ran into one of them, and then I'd be able to find my way home.

Kids now all have smartphones by the time they start driving, and can just punch the destination into Google Maps.

But again, it ties into my previous point... If you're not feeding your brain with work it needs to accomplish, you're not going to reach your IQ potential. Having to figure out how to get from point A to point B using a map (or, god forbid, a Thomas Guide) is feeding your brain with work. It doesn't seem like much, but the more you do it, the more you get used to doing it. And IQ tests are basically a test of problem-solving, so those people who have more experience solving problems usually do better than those who don't.

Your point about GPS is something I've observed as well, two examples:

Right after I graduated I moved back to my hometown (Medina, Cleveland/Akron suburb) and worked in Auditing. As such I usually worked at client sites rather than the main office. I didn't have GPS back then so I printed mapquest directions. I only ever used them the first time, after that I just knew. Honestly, if you asked me today (20+ years later) to drive to one of those, I'd have no problem doing it. Conversely, there are places I have been many, many times with GPS that I still don't actually know the route because instead of looking for streets I've just turned when the lady in the box on my dash (later in my dash) told me to turn.

My second example relates to CFB and is similar to your "lost in Chicago" story. So my brother and I went to the 2001 Ohio State at Michigan football game, pre-GPS. Ann Arbor is almost as bad as State College in terms of GameDay traffic because both are small cities that would more-or-less disappear if you removed the University. Side note, traffic is easiest in places like Columbus and Iowa City where you are in a much larger metro area with the necessary infrastructure to handle the traffic. Anyway, Michigan GameDay traffic suffers from an additional problem. The vast majority of Michigan's population lives in and around Detroit. Consequently, after a game the vast majority of the fans all need to go the same direction, East on I94 towards Detroit.

Like idiots, we had parked North of Michigan Stadium and it literally took hours to get back to the Stadium and finally on to the I94 interchange. When we finally got there, that was our intended route home:

• I94 East to I75
• I75 South to the Ohio Turnpike
• Ohio Turnpike (aka I80/I90) East to I71
• I71 South to home.

That is the reverse of how we got to Ann Arbor and the only route we knew. No GPS, no maps, just that.

When we got to I94, the eastbound lanes were stopped either due to an accident or just because nearly all 100k+ fans from the Stadium were trying to take it home to Detroit.

We had already been sitting in stop-and-go (mostly stop) traffic on Main Street in Ann Arbor for over four hours so I was in no mood for more of that. Like I said, we had no maps but I knew that the Turnpike wasn't too far South of where we were and I75 wasn't too far East of where we were so we just zigzagged South and East until we stumbled into one of them.