A recent Washington Post piece pulled together what a lot of us have been describing for years: the "brain rot" feeling isn't just slang. Researchers are linking heavy social media use and rapid-fire content to measurable changes in attention and memory, and the way it shows up day-to-day can look a lot like anxiety.
Remember when getting someone's phone number meant writing it down on a piece of paper? Or when making plans required actually sticking to them because there was no way to send a last-minute "running late!" text? There's a fascinating divide happening between millennials who remember these pre-smartphone days and those who don't, and it's showing up in ways we're only beginning to understand.
A combination of terrible (or non-existent) parenting, constantly checking phones and thus having no concentration or attention span, and most recently, the growth of AI as the answer to everything (so learning how to think for oneself or do anything for oneself is now seen as obsolete), is bringing about actual brainrot in young people. It seems to be widespread globally in the 'developed' world.
You settle in for a quick scroll through your feed, maybe just to unwind for a minute or two. But somewhere between a cooking hack and a clip you've already forgotten, forty minutes vanished. It's all a blur. Welcome to the era of infinite content and finite attention, where our brains are working overtime just to keep up with the deluge.
This month, I picked up a concerned parent from the waiting room. I walked her to my office and asked how I could help. "My 10-year-old son can't focus on anything. I think it's because of the video games. He won't read because he says it's boring, he won't even play a board game with me. He keeps getting in trouble at school for playing games on his Chromebook in class. The only time he sits still is when he's playing video games."
A single photograph from the day, in 1970, that four students there were killed by the Ohio National Guard is so powerful that, whenever I hear any mention of Kent State-its basketball team or its engineering program-the picture flashes in my mind. I'm sure I'm not alone. Kent State was reduced to a single photo because the press was far more centralized at the time, and had the power and the influence to edit, curate, and promote a particular version of an event.
Streaming services are like candy stores for your eyeballs. One minute you're deep into a superhero saga, and the next you're watching a true-crime doc about someone stealing zoo animals. Platforms like Netflix, Disney+, and YouTube keep audiences glued by mixing everything: action, romance, horror, and even weird cooking shows where people bake cakes shaped like trainers. It's that constant switch-up that makes it fun. Variety keeps people curious, and curiosity keeps people watching. Who can resist the 'Next Episode' button, anyway? It's practically hypnotic.
Executives who have been in their industries for decades will likely remember the days of long-form think pieces in prestigious publications. Those media mentions were the gold standard for showcasing thought leadership and building brand awareness.
In an era where user attention spans have decreased drastically, fewer individuals are willing to invest time learning complex tools like Photoshop, driving a shift towards AI-driven solutions.
