Brain rot nation: How TikTok could be unwiring your brain

Think about the last time you were binging your favorite show

Were you locked in, paying attention to every word? Or did you pick up your phone and before you knew it, the credits were rolling

If it's the latter, you may be at risk of feeling the dreaded effects of brain rot

The idea of brain rot has become so prevalent, it was designated Oxford Dictionary's 2024 word of the year

Is a glut of digital content, especially on short form video apps like TikTok, affecting our mental health and cognitive abilities

Oxford defines brain rot as the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state

especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material, now particularly online content, considered to be trivial or unchallenging

Put simply, consumption of unchallenging content on the Internet and on our devices

And you can refer to that content as well as the symptoms people experience from consuming that content

Anything from confusion, memory loss, physical symptoms like headache, fatigue. Number one, what it's doing is it's shortening our attention spans, making us become junkies for the latest, fastest piece of information

And two, it's actually harming our memories so that we aren't able to remember the things and put it into the proper context

To dig into this, we tapped Dr. Gary Small, a professor and chair in psychiatry at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine

and Kurt Steinhorst, a leadership strategist focusing on attention. Both of them got into the effects of technology on the brain because of personal experiences

Stein Horst says he realized how inundated he was when he started his own business

It was the first time that I was just completely bowled over by the amount of digital information

and I look up and it be 3 p and I would have a great at the time Google meet conversation with my girlfriend who then has become my wife But nothing had gotten done So for me it was truly a personal journey of I either have to figure this out or I going to need to move back home and live with my parents like everyone else in my generation was

For small, his teenage kids' activities piqued his interest. I noticed they were playing video games or my son was playing video games

My daughter was on her smartphone all the time and it concerned me

And that led to more studies trying to understand this. While the word saw a 230% surge in usage last year, it first popped up in 1854

But Oxford says it's taken on a new meaning. Now, the term encapsulates a cultural movement of digital overstimulation defined by doom scrolling

TikTok rabbit holes, and skibbity toilet. So is this kind of content changing the way people use their brains

or is it facing the scrutiny every form of new media from rock and roll music to video games have dealt with

It's not an official medical term, but still, there are a number of symptoms associated with brain rot

Many reported as a deterioration of their intelligence or their cognitive abilities

Others say they have a harder time concentrating or have to deal with brain fog

Recent studies link frequent short form video consumption to impaired memory, reduced attention spans, and lower academic performance

Researchers attribute this to rapid context switching and cognitive overload. One of the more interesting recent findings is shrinkage, your atrophy in the gray matter of the brain, in areas in the frontal lobe that control decision making, memory and other functions

Now that's a bit concerning. Conditions like brain rot are often related to doom scrolling

We've all been there. it's that compulsive consumption of news content, specifically of the negative variety

Research suggests you may start doom scrolling while checking news or social media in times of uncertainty for instance a natural disaster And doom scrolling can have serious effects on your

mental health. Research shows it reinforces pessimism while increasing stress levels. In fact, the practice can trap users in both dopamine and feedback loops

What the environment that we're experiencing is really good at is giving us dopamine

Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that is released when we experience something that makes us feel good, that our brain says, do that more

It will help you survive. And the anticipation of that event occurring again actually releases dopamine

And so, you know, the risk is that we become more and more dependent upon the next dopamine hit

And we lose the capacity to extend attention in an area that doesn't give us an immediate dopamine hit

Constant content consumption can lead to information overload. Constant notifications take a toll on working memory and can lead to broader mental health issues like burnout, anxiety and depression

While all of this may change how our brains operate, there can be other downsides

One of the reasons humans consume so much content is to fight boredom

While it isn't a fun feeling, research suggests boredom encourages the brain to seek something interesting and breeds creativity

Boredom creates and forces us to expand and to imagine. And imagination is one of the foundational pillars of what will make people valuable in a world with AI

If I'm not exercising the mental muscle of imagination devoid of anything in my physical environment

then what I'm going to do is lose the ability to bring that to bear on a technology that has literally all the current information in the world

but doesn't have the ability to create the new. And it's in the best interest of tech companies to keep your eyes on those devices

It was in the 1970s actually that the term attention economy started to become used

And all it means is that the single most highly coveted and financially profitable resource

is not just dollars it human attention So you see that in the advertising world This is why hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars are spent for the sole goal of capturing attention And they are getting your attention

According to Addiction Help, about 10% of Americans are addicted to social media

It's tricky because, you know, with, say, alcohol or drug addiction, you can abstain from that to try to reset your brain and behavior

Here, you know, most of us need the technology for work and for our social lives

So how do you, it's impossible to abstain from it. So we have to figure out other ways to help people

Some of the biggest platforms have released some form of digital well-being features

TikTok's sleep hours notifies users that they should stop using the app after 10 p.m

and offers guided meditation to help them relax before putting their phones down

10 minutes a day of mindfulness makes a big difference. The feature is automatically on for users under 18, and the company claims 98% of teens kept the feature turned on during its testing

Adults can also use the feature. The latest phones by Apple, Samsung, and Google all have features built in to track the amount of time people spend on their devices and will notify them when it's time for a break

But you don't have to rely on tech giants to get you off your device

It's not rocket science. And of course, make sure you don't overuse the technology, take breaks, and even use your technology to remind you to take breaks

Set the alarm. Get up, have a conversation. Exercise. Stretch. I do this in my office all the time

I have my seven-minute standing workout that I do to take a break

I mean, get my heart, put oxygen and nutrients to my brain cells to get me functioning a bit better

So while it has its downsides, there are still a lot of positives to social media and the ever-connected world we live in

Dr. Small says the tech makes it much easier for him to collaborate with researchers around the world in an instant

With Stray Arrow News, I'm Kennedy Felton. Download our app or visit san.com for more