Electronic technology is relatively new. However, with many Americans having been born in the computer age (starting in 1945), technology has always been present within day to day life. While computers, phones, and social media do connect, help, and entertain us in ways never seen before, their impact on us as human beings is bittersweet. This is largely in part to the deleterious effects of brain rot. Brain rot is the commonly accepted term for the mental fogginess developed after too much scrolling or a long day of bingeing a show, and some platforms and people have taken it to the next level. It is my personal opinion that cases of excessive brain rot must be stopped in order to maintain a functioning society.
First, it is important to identify why brain rot is such a problem for society. Brain rot occurs because your brain gets tired when overstimulated for long periods of time. For example, the entire time you’re watching a TV show your brain is constantly receiving and relaying varying backgrounds, people, and noises. This exhausts your brain causing mental dissonance, or brain rot. If you have ever had it, you know that something just feels off. Physically you feel fine, but cognitively your thoughts don’t. This, while not overly harmful, in certain situations slows thinking and makes menial mental tasks challenging. Further, studies have found that too much television can decrease the grey matter in your brain, and that is bad. Grey matter is the part of our brain that processes and releases information such as movement, memory, and emotions. Therefore, excessive brain rot negatively impacts the cognitive abilities of growing generations, and it’s not going away. Humans take thousands of years to adapt, and the current generation is increasingly exposed to all sorts of brain rotting content. So, to counteract the effects of brain rot our generation needs to get ahead of the significantly excessive variants of it.
For instance, Skibidi Toilet by Alexey Gerasimov is a popular Youtube series with its episodes lasting only a couple seconds long. This game series has found favor with younger people, and it’s purely brain numbing. The episodes transpire like this: the camera zooms on an animated bathroom, a dude with a buzz cut sticks his head out of a toilet, and the dude says a variation of “skibidi bob dom dom yes yes” on repeat to a background music track. There is genuinely no way to convince me that this is anyway good for you, yet children watch it on repeat, basically overheating their brain. Another example is PPAP (Pen Pineapple Apple Pen) by PIKOTARO. A dude in a snake skin styled sweatsuit with a leopard spotted scarf dances while saying variations of the words pen, pineapple, and apple for two and a half minutes. There are so many mind numbing examples not including the acts of zombie scrolling on social media sites or playing video games for drawn out periods of time.
So how do we prevent brain rot? Down with the iPad kids? No more Wild Krats? Well, brain rot is different for everyone, but there are a few steps to prevent it from consuming you or your family’s life. Scientists recommend using electronics in moderation with gradual breaks throughout use or yoga and other “mindfulness” activities. I think what we really need is parents who can tell their child no. No social media. No Spongebob. No you can not watch another show. No you can not download that app. Then only then, will children grow up without the dependence on electronics and, for Pete’s sake, read a book.
