Did you know that the term "brain rot" was actually named word of the year by the Oxford University Press in 2024?
I didn't either, until I found myself looking up the term brain rot because I was curious to know whether it was just an Internet meme or there was some actual psychology or physiology lying behind it.
This, in turn, was prompted by having read about a study conducted some years ago that provided fairly solid documentation that poverty causes people to become dumber.
Well, maybe not exactly, but the study followed a fairly autonomous small town that was heavily dependent on harvesting a short lived seasonal crop, meaning that people in the town were relatively well off for a few months of the year immediately after the harvest, but otherwise struggling to get by for the remainder of the year.
Over number of years the town's inhabitants were given IQ tests the relatively short while after the successful harvest and again towards the very end of the long period of poverty and it clearly showed that when you're struggling to get by your reasoning and capacity to deal with relatively complex tasks diminishes considerably, as compared to when you are financially secure.
But getting back to brain rot, I can see why it's a real thing. I watch people around me (who spend a lot of time consuming short form video content on TikTok and various other places), and it seems like they have less and less capacity to hold a thought for any period of time, and to problem solve things that require their attention and concentration for more than a few seconds.
I admit that maybe this kind of consumption of mindless drivel doesn't necessarily make you dumber but it means that your attention span pretty much goes in the toilet.
In turn, this makes me wonder whether we are creating a world in which nothing that requires prolonged concentration will ever get done any more? What's gonna happen to the world when the older people — who grew up in a world before TikTok — are dead and the world is entirely run by those whose lives have always revolved around short form content?
Of course these are just abstract speculations at this point, yet I can't help but periodically think back to one of my favorite cult movies: "Idiocracy."
To be honest, sometimes I do feel like my brain is rotting, particularly when I go look at some of the various clips friends online send me with the attached statement "this is really cool!"
For the most part I find it inane and meaningless.
Some might argue that I "don't know how to have fun," and I will take ownership of that one because it's a statement that has followed me pretty much since I was a little kid. But I think there's a difference between having fun, and then just letting your brain cells spill out your ear while you watch meaningless colors and shapes move across the screen in 10-second increments.
Of course, it's entirely possible that I am simply not brave enough for this world!
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Created at 2026.01.05 01:38 PST
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