Paul P. Powell — 4 months ago(November 23, 2025 07:45 PM)

He didn't have any favorites. Movies hadn't been invented when Lincoln was president. Only 'still photography' and daguerreotypes.
He might only have experienced a stereoscope, a stereo-opticon, or a zoetrope, or something similarly crude.
I hope this is not a revelation to anyone reading this. It's a trick question.
But it is true that "Honest Abe" vilified all con men, connivers, shysters, or quacks.
Lincoln was famously a champion of average 'man in the street' intelligence.
He believed that common, everyday, ordinary folk can always steer their own destiny correctly if given all the information.
My point? I wouldn't be surprised if someday in the not-too-distant future, chat sites began to see obviously air-headed questions like the one I just made up. Reddit is already practically this witless.
Medical Fact: the combination of movies, television, internet and smartphones is giving us a global decline in mental ability.
The phenomenon is provisionally being called "
Negative Flynn Effect"
. Sounds like a gag, but nope.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/homo-idioticus/202506/the-rise-of-homo-idioticus-are-we-getting-more-stupid
It's being tracked in medical journals …
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0160289616300198
…and by major news outlets like New York Times.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/american-adult-lower-iq-scores-cognitive-decline-technology-flynn-effect.html
The Great Emancipator would be heartily disturbed/dismayed at the gullibility of the internet generation. Here's an except from the <u>PsychologyToday,</u> (a link I provided above):
One prominent theory is that the decline isn’t genetic but environmental—a reflection of how modern life is reshaping our brains. Today’s children grow up immersed in a world of screens, scrolling, and superficial content. Quick dopamine hits from social media and 30-second videos have replaced deep reading and problem-solving. Educational systems, pressured to meet standardized benchmarks, often "teach to the test" rather than nurture independent thinking.
Even daily digital distractions have an impact: Studies suggest that just checking your phone or email can temporarily reduce IQ by up to 10 points. If that’s the cognitive cost of a ping, what is the cost of a life lived online?
We’ve also lost traditional filters of intellectual quality. Before social media, books and journalism underwent rigorous editing. Now, content floods our feeds without any such gatekeeping. As a result, many people are absorbing the thoughts not of experts or educators but of influencers, bloggers, and pseudocelebrities—some of whom couldn’t pass a high school exam.
As the saying goes: We are what we eat. And in the digital age, we are what we consume with our eyes and ears.
Will leave you with a
two-fer
.
In tandem with this gloomy news, K-12 literacy in the USA is plummeting:
https://cepr.harvard.edu/news/scary-truth-about-how-far-behind-american-kids-have-fallen
https://afn.net/education/2025/09/12/report-of-lower-test-scores-shows-failure-of-public-schools-says-education-analyst/
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Living/us-students-reading-math-scores-historic-lows-devastating/story?id=125392421
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/public-education-failure-american-test-scores-trump-pandemic-liberals.html
Basically, idiotic
digiterati
parents, are raising idiot offspring who are no smarter than colonial era bumpkins.
What this means to film history, film education? There's a point at which movies/TV will probably replace genuine, valid thinking skills.
Historicism will vanish; stooges in the street will only know what they read from some kind of screen/monitor.
It's up to all of us to keep on the right side of the line.
Paul P. Powell, Pool Player