Oxford’s Declares Word of the Year, ‘Brain Rot’: Why We Seek It And What It Does To Our Brains

Brain rot as defined by Oxford, is “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”. They added that theterm increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.

Eti Goel, a psychologist and trainer at EmoAid Wellness Centre, New Delhi, said that brain rotting is often a chosen daily activity, as it helps people switch off. “When people hit their couches or beds, they just want to tune off. Tune off from their emotions, tune off from their thoughts, tune off from overthinking and the quickest way to do this is often through the consumption of online content,” she said.

With smartphones in nearly every hand, from toddlers to seniors, surfing social media and endless scrolling have become dominant daily activities. However, experts warn that this trend is eroding real-world human connection and deeply affecting our cognitive health.

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“A young client, in their teens told me that at the end of the day, nobody understands them, except the algorithm. They said a social media platform understands them better, it knows exactly what to show them, make them feel better after a long day of being at school,” recalled Arushi Handa, a counselling psychologist.

As endless social media consumption becomes a trend across generations and geographies, we find out from experts, why we’re so addicted to ‘brain rot’ and what it actually does to our brains.

From Babies to GenX, Everyone’s Addicted to Phones

There is no longer a clear generational divide when it comes to phone addiction.

Kala Balasubramanian, a Psychotherapist at Inner Dawn Counselling, explains that from babies to housewives, to older generations, everyone’s using phones. “Phones are used as pacifiers for very young babies, as young as one year old sometimes. Before they learn to type, they figure out how to use voice commands, and can even start games to play,” she highlights.

She says that mindless scrolling of social media starts in adolescent ages, where peer pressure often plays a part.

Arushi highlighted that GenZ, or those born after 1997, have grown up on the internet, and brain rot is something very common for them. They’ve grown up accessing online content as a medium of easy entertainment, which is available free of cost.

She added, “Adults, whether it working people or homemakers, smartphones have become the default devices that they go back to when they have any free. Even elderly people, who are newly getting used to smartphones, also get addicted to random scrolling of Instagram reels or YouTube shorts. This is a reality right now”

For many generations, mindless scrolling has become synonymous with unwinding, resting or taking a break, raising the question: are we actively seeking out ‘brain rot’ as a form of escape?

Why Are We Seeking Out Brain Rot?

Arushi explained how the reward-effort matrix works in psychology, in trying to explain why we often seek out brain rot.

“Our jobs, lives and other activities take up a lot of effort and resources. If we see our energy levels, motivation, and emotional resources like a battery, most times, jobs, social lives and other commitments eat away at a lot of it. We’re seeing how corporate jobs, isolation and other soul-less things reduce people’s batteries by big amounts by the end of the day. So it doesn’t leave people with the energy to indulge in hobbies, do some reading or interact with other people. They end up picking something in the category of less effort, low reward, where brain rotting is an easy pick," she said.

People keep at it mindlessly, even if they’re not enjoying it that much. It’s all a person feels like they can do with the amount of energy they have left, before moving on to the next day.

Arushi highlights that even though she says these activities are not very rewarding, from a neuroscience point of view, scrolling is a highly dopaminergic activity – leading people to gain satisfaction from these activities.

However, these dopamine hits have a darker side. Over time, they can rewire the brain to crave such low-effort rewards, perpetuating a cycle of dependence on digital content.

What Does Brain Rotting Do To Us In The Long Term?

What most online content lovers don’t realise, is that while it may seem like a harmless, mindless activity, it actually can have several long-term effects on our brains.

Kala explained how brains need new, engaging activities to remain healthy, and brain rot does the opposite of that.

She said, “Neurobiologically speaking, our brains are fairly plastic, meaning, it has the capacity to build new networks and connections within it. So it's important to engage in new, interesting, and problem-solving activities – which have an outcome or endpoint. Indulging in activities with new learnings enables brains to stay active, and keep forming new neural networks to keep our brain healthy.”

However, excess use of social media, random scrolling, video games and such activities has quite the opposite effect on our brains.

“None of these activities allow us to form those neural networks in our brain, as they become very short-term memory. When you look at a reel and then go to the next reel, there is no major processing that is needed. So the brain doesn't develop any new networks.

She added, “The capacity to learn new things to have problem-solving abilities also starts slowing down over a period of time to have new learning to have problem-solving capacity. Attention spans also decline.”

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Arushi explains that brain rot, or the process of it, perpetuates the cycle of isolation. People get so used to the cycle, that they don’t find the motivation to change any of it. “They continue to be unhappy because they’re not seeking out anything meaningful. It takes away opportunities to be creative, build hobbies, or do other meaningful activities. We, as humans, need some of these serotonergic activities,” she said.

The Erosion of Human Connections

The very real effect of choosing brain rotting is the gradual deterioration of human relationships.

“Social media gives the illusion of engagement. It also makes people feel seen, because they feel happy, they feel engaged and equate that with the algorithm understanding them,” said Arushi. It not only gives them entertainment but also a sense of community, she added.

This often leads to people preferring to be online and look at their phones over having a conversation with another person.

“It also speaks about the quality of relationships, when a phone finds priority over real human conversations,” said Kala.

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She added that technology, smartphones and apps will only rise but we need to figure out what’s important to us and what is not. “A knife can be used to cut vegetables, or also harm someone. Similarly, we need to understand how we want to use technology. Do we have enough awareness? Do we have enough control over ourselves? These are the key questions to ask,” she said.

While brain rot is a social reality, which serves as a temporary escape for many, its long-term implications should make many reanalyse their daily habits.