Doomscrolling. Instagram obsessions. Mindless YouTube video viewing.
Distracting behaviours, yes. But can they actually rot a person’s brain?
In 2024, Oxford University Press named “brain rot” as its word of the year, defining it as the “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state” caused by overconsuming “trivial or unchallenging” material found on social media and other online platforms.
“It’s what happens when you consume too much low-quality online content, which is like junk food for the brain,” says Dr Andreana Benitez, an associate professor in the department of neurology at the Medical University of South Carolina, in the United States.
But whether that content is actually harming the brain – and how – remains unclear.
According to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), half of teens in the US spend four hours or more looking at screens each day, and global estimates suggest adults may be online an average of more than six hours per day.
