The term “Brain Rot” refers to the feeling of fogginess and loss of cognitive function caused by excessive screen usage. The most notable time brain rot occurs is when individuals are scrolling through social media and seeing pointless, seemingly random videos. These videos provide short bursts of dopamine which after a long while will result in becoming worn out and will eventually cause attention spans to lower. All this aside, why is brain rot so dangerous?
For starters, “…the number of ‘adult’ social media users around the world (i.e. those aged 18 and above) now equates to more than 86 percent of all adults in that age group,” according to DataReportal. These young adults are usually pretty stressed out and susceptible to the endless scrolling and short lived entertainment of social media. In addition to young adults, plenty of children also have social media, and it’s hard to find anyone without it. This easy of access to social media from phones is what makes brain rot so scary; it is so easy to consume this media and to become distracted by phones.
But should brain rot be truly recognized as a more serious problem? Currently, “It’s not a medically recognized condition, but it is a real phenomenon,” said News Port Institute. Brain rot has many ties to mental health and can even rewire peoples brain. While scrolling, the brain sees each scroll as an action and each video as the reward. This in turn affects the brain’s reward system and causes things that would normally evoke feelings of happiness to feel diluted, boring and dull according to News Port Institute. Similarly, social media has a lot of negative ideas and thoughts, and these negatives only lessen the brain’s ability to see the world in a positive light.
But because brain rot is so dangerous, it must be hard to get rid of right? No, actually, it’s very easy to get rid of. There are many ways to help get rid of brain rot, but News Port Institute has some of the best ones. For example, it is possible to curate feeds to show better, more positive content to, in turn, create positive moods. It is also possible to also manage screen times, lessening the amount of time on social media. Or, simply just deleting social media and focusing on other things can create a much safer environment for the brain and and personal well beings.
