Over the past several years, technology and the culture surrounding it have evolved at an alarming rate. In the years since the COVID-fueled lockdowns of 2020, people have turned to online resources in unprecedented ways, migrating much of what was once traditional physical interaction into the digital space. Everything from job interviews to grocery shopping can now be done almost entirely online, something that would have been practically unfathomable in decades past.
With so many people’s lives linked with the internet in such ways, it only makes sense that IQ testing would follow. Social media platforms have dominated culture in various ways for years. Each new facet that emerges, which bolsters users’ presence, inevitably gains significant traction, allowing users to show off a different side of themselves through this digital lens.
The latest example is MyIQ, a site that illustrates the emergence of cognitive self-testing as part of a rapidly growing global “cognitive economy,” where behavioral insight becomes a strategic personal resource.
Changing Cultural Norms
Alongside these technological changes have come profound societal and cultural changes. For instance, in years past, IQ was framed as a private, academic, or institutional concern. It wasn’t a topic discussed much outside school reports or clinical contexts. However, with so much of the education and medical industries shifting to online platforms in recent years, much has changed. Platforms like MyIQ are turning cognitive self-assessment into something that feels public, narrative, and socially legible.
The change is apparent in the increased frequency of discussions about testing. Previously limited to institutional boundaries, cognitive testing is now gaining visibility through interviews, livestreams, and online discussions. MyIQ has seen increased word-of-mouth popularity, with creators using their results to spark longer conversations about productivity, focus, burnout, and creative resilience.
Adaptive Rather than Definitive
Where traditional tests emphasized evaluation, MyIQ functions more like an exploratory tool. Its adaptive IQ test, along with related diagnostics on personality, emotional regulation, and behavioral patterns, is less about evaluating the individual’s abilities and more about offering a structured but flexible map of how they think. In this way, users have embraced it to understand aspects of themselves, such as response patterns, emotional tendencies, and relationship behavior.
Beyond the headline IQ score, users regularly explore the platform’s 90-question personality test, 120-question relationship quiz, and specialized modules on procrastination, decision-making, attention, and burnout. These assessments aren’t positioned as diagnoses but as tools for behavioral insight. For a generation fluent in digital self-curation, this approach appears less like an evaluation and more like a vocabulary.
The Evolving Nature of IQ Testing
As Bob Dylan once wrote, “The times, they are a-changing,” and this is very much the case with IQ testing in the digital age. MyIQ users are not using these tests as definitive benchmarks, but rather as tools to bolster their own intelligence and self-awareness. Where IQ tests were once viewed as formidable and classified, they are now open, accessible, and transparent. Users are increasingly revisiting results, treating cognitive data as operational information, much like metrics tracked by wearables or productivity tools.
The rise of platforms like MyIQ signals that cognitive insight is becoming a new asset class in digital life, influencing how people adapt, work, and connect. There is no longer any fear or dread associated with IQ evaluations; only a refreshing sense of curiosity and optimism in the digital space.
