Has stupid become contagious?

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I have always made it a goal of mine to surround myself with intelligent, interresting, and goal oriented people. It could matter to me what walk of life they are walking nor that which I am walking at any given time. Intellect can be found in any demographic slice of the population from pauper to prince and any age group. I have been blessed throughout my adult life with friends who have been tight and close over long periods of time. However more than a few of them have started acting like they have caught a case of stupid like a cold. It seems to be happening with disturbing frequency. And it all seems to be ignorant stuff that common sense should tell them is unacceptable. Like one of them who recently walked out on his wife of over 36 years for a skeevy street urchin with no ambition, a complete lack of goals, and zero work ethic. Unlike the wife whom he had raised a family with and who had stood by him and kept the home fires burning and the family together while he went and did three state bids of min 2 years and the max was 6. I think that kind of loyalty is hard to find and should be much better rewarded than finding the street urchin in your bed with your husband on Valentine's day. Or him choosing the street urchin because she's twenty years younger than both he and the wife. In fact to hear him tell it, he doesn't even really like the girl anymore. She has made an albatross of herself for the last 4 1/2 years. He claims he left the wife and family(who mind you still takes him back in whenever he comes home) because the girl needs him and he feels responsible for her. My common sense tells me that this girl has survived over 30 years of her life without his help or his overweaning sense of responsibility. I have made the argument to him several times that the girl was somewhere b4 she was with him. I have another friend who is drowning in her bills and is looking to cut costs on her recurring bills like her light bill, water bills, etcetera. Yet both her daughters ages 15 and 13 have cellular phones, with unlimited calling and texting for three cell phones, rather than just having 1 for herself and cutting the bill to 1/3. She told them that if she heard they were playing with their phones in school or their grades dipped that she would take the phones away 3 years ago when she got the phones for the girls. Both things have occurred and yet they both still have their phones. She also has big cable bill because she has big screen tv's and thus this justifies needing premium channels and DVR's in each of 4 bedrooms. Then she tells me that she plans to downgrade her cable package to basic service only because she found out that she can now watch tv on her new cell phone. Come on! Even though you can watch tv on your phone the screen is 3 inches by 2. I think that that will be far less pleasing than her 92 inch big screen tv the next time the family gets together to watch a movie. She cannot seem to figure our how she can cut costs and stop drowning in her bills. It goes on and on. The stupid is getting so pervasive among my previously intelligent friends that I am starting to fear I may catch the infectous stupids too! Is is something in the water, early stage senility, or are they just a product of all the brain cells that we have all killed together and seperately over the years? Have you noted a trend of stupid occuring all around you to your previously intelligent friends and family members too?