Lead exposure in last century shrank IQ scores of half of Americans

100% correct. Nature does not blink and boop. Just like a drugs out devices hijack people's natural feedback mechanisms and produce an experience that's hyper-real.

A two year-old with an iPad becomes unable to handle reality because it's dull by comparison.

Relevant social commentary (timestamped): https://youtu.be/k1BneeJTDcU?t=176

That’s the obvious answer, surely, and one I’m disposed to agree with. But given that we’ve introduced a lot of new chemistry to our bodies over the last century or so, I’m suggesting that it may not be the only answer. This is not to say new chemistry is necessarily bad, either. Food and water in the industrialized world are massively safer from microbial contamination than they ever have been. People generally stay healthier, longer than ever in history. Nonetheless, if we’re inadvertently poisoning ourselves, we can do even better if we stop.

I think the point of what they were saying is that it was lead back then. What about the other poisons we know _today_ but haven't discovered that it's a huge contributor to mental health

Leaded gasoline was phased out in 1996.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/gasoline/history-of-gaso...