“Brain rot” is a term anyone leading a partially online life in the 21st century is bound to have heard. It is defined as “the deterioration of one’s intellectual and mental state due to overconsumption of unchallenging material” and while we would all like to say that it impacts everyone apart from us, we would be sadly mistaken. Whether said in passing jokes, memes or short videos it is primarily used in a joking context. Due to this most people do not consider it to be much of an issue.
Although popularised in recent years, the term brain rot is not a modern invention. First used in Henry David Thoreau’s book “Walden” in 1854, the author emphasises how we as a society tend to choose less challenging stimuli over complex ones. According to Dr. Laurie Ann Manwell a psychologist and instructor at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph in Canada, brain rot symptoms include impairments in concentration, recurring disorientation, memory loss, especially of recent events, neglect of one’s physical wellbeing as well as changes in personality, sociability mood, reasoning, and decision-making abilities. All of the listed above prove to be a struggle in day-to-day life.
A common enemy to discipline and the fight against procrastination is dopamine addiction. Have you ever looked away from scrolling on your phone to find your vision swimming and the clock having sped forward three hours? Dopamine, or “the pleasure chemical” while not addicting in itself, links things that make you feel good with a desire to do them again, which contributes to addiction. The biggest issue lies in the fact that with time, dopamine requires increasingly more fuel which can lead to the development of an Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) that, according to NIH studies, is especially prevalent in teenagers. This is why you may have found yourself unable to tear your eyes away from your screen as the constant, easy-access stimuli of your phone leaves you reluctant to find satisfaction in things that require more effort. Oftentimes, this is used as a tactic to push away the stress of your to-do list as your mind is momentarily blanketed by all thoughts but your own.
That brings us to how constantly being bombarded with information harms our ability to conduct critical thought, causes disorientation and leads to – colloquially speaking – a scrambled brain. Getting lost within a sea of mutually exclusive opinions is as easy as searching up a hair-care routine on TikTok. The first thirty-second video lures you in with its #cleangirl trap and is confirmed as God’s word by its 275k likes as it tells you that hair masks will fix your life in five minutes. Then you scroll down and see a certified top five in the country of mass media dermatologist that tells you how hair masks will be the cause of your waking up with a bald head to rival Dwayne Johnson. Confusing, frustrating but in itself not particularly harmful – until that same dilemma seeps into advice on relationships as well as mental and physical health. These days, where a significant amount of the teenage population seeks aid for all kinds of life problems on social media platforms, this inordinate influx of information can lead to anxiety, paranoia and an inability to choose what’s best for oneself.
While the aforementioned points have already been concerning, perhaps the most pressing issue is the emerging global literacy crisis. As something that often takes up a significant fraction of our daily lives, media consumption also shapes our language. Popularised slang terms, the shortening of words and the lack of proper grammar steadily leads to a deterioration of linguistic skill in youth, especially those who learn english primarily through social media platforms. The struggle with concentration also makes it difficult for many to simply sit down and read a book which negatively impacts the natural growth of vocabulary needed for self expression, professional settings and understanding of complex topics. That is not to mention that this cognitive overflow has been found to drop individuals’ IQ by around 10 points. Although already noticeable in society today, the severity of this problem will be most felt in upcoming years, as the children who currently use social media in abundance in their most critical ages of development grow into adults.
Now that we know that the habit of scrolling through videos on social media causes a multitude of negative effects that range from severe confusion to severely impacted grades, it leaves us with an important question: is there anything that can be done to fix it? Thankfully the answer is Yes, although vexatiously, much easier said than done. Finding alternative sources of dopamine and sticking to them – these can include physical activity, playing music, painting, debating and any other result-based hobby that comes to mind. Challenging yourself to read more by exploring genres to find ones that suit your taste. Deleting social apps that do not fully require your presence on them. Placing time limits on your devices. Taking control over these aspects of your life will help, step-by-step to get back your creativity, critical thinking and focus. The most important thing to remember is that the earlier you start the easier cleaning your brain of the rot will be.
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