Doomscrolling Is Giving You Brain Rot

Scrolling and scrolling…and scrolling is rotting your brain. That’s what the experts say, at least.

Oxford University Press chose “brain rot” as its word of the year, and it’s a perfect fit, apparently, as we may be doing some serious damage to our brains with our constant social media use.

Behavioral neuroscientist Dr. Kyra Bobinet, author of Unstoppable Brain, told Fox News Digital that concerns about brain rot are becoming more widespread.

“It’s in the zeitgeist that people have difficulty with their attention span. They feel brain foggy, they [have] less concentration… They can’t do deep work,” she shares. “And then there’s also this epidemic of loneliness that has been kind of sitting on the heels of this, because we can’t really focus on anything, including relationship-building.”

Bobinet found that the part of the brain that can lead to “brain rot,” “doom-scrolling” and other problematic online behaviors, is the habenula.

The habenula is responsible for motivation — and also, the lack thereof.

“It’s the heart of when you know you should be doing something, and you do this other thing instead, like ‘doom-scrolling,’” Bobinet noted. “Anytime you’re avoiding something, you know this area of the brain is on.”

Avoidance behaviors like overuse of social media can become a dangerous habit.

“We all need motivation to live our lives and to feel proud of ourselves and to feel confident and to get what we want,” the researcher shared.

Dr. Don Grant, national adviser of healthy device management at Newport Healthcare in Los Angeles, said one of his major concerns is how “brain rot” is affecting imagination and education.

“We don’t have to imagine anything anymore,” he said. “We pick up our devices every time. I’m worried about memory. I’m worried about education.”

Social media, he notes, also has a major impact on sleep habits, which is especially crucial for children. Some kids Grant spoke with admitted to spending around eight hours a night on their phones.

“And I say, ‘OK, can you tell me one video you remember?’ I have yet to have one kid really be able to remember anything they saw,” he shared. “Our brain matter is diminishing, our memories are diminishing [and] our attention spans are diminishing.”

between 2023 and 2024, ‘brain rot’ use increased by 230%

Oxford officially defines ‘brain rot’ as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.”

The term has surged in popularity due to growing concern about the impact of social media and screen time on mental health. Oxford reports that between 2023 and 2024, the term “increased in usage frequency by 230%.”

In the opinion of Casper Grathwohl, President of Oxford Languages, the popularity of “brain rot” is both apt and ironic.

“I find it fascinating that the term ‘brain rot’ has been adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha, those communities largely responsible for the use and creation of the digital content the term refers to,” he notes. “These communities have amplified the expression through social media channels, the very place said to cause ‘brain rot.’ It demonstrates a somewhat cheeky self-awareness in the younger generations about the harmful impact of social media that they’ve inherited.”

However, concerns about ‘brain rot’ long precede social media and cell phones. Oxford notes that the first recorded use of the term comes in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. After his attempt at living simply, one of the author’s conclusions was a critique of society’s aversion to complex ideas.

He wrote, “While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”