Brain rot is 2024’s word of the year, but it’s time for a reality check

2024 has seen a flurry of trending slang like demure, delulu, manifest but brain rot takes the crown with Oxford naming it the Word of the Year for 2024. Are you guilty of scrolling through copious amounts of cheap, low-quality content that you’re fully aware of? It’s like a strange guilty pleasure.
Whether it’s songs remixed with alpha slangs like sigma, Skibidi Toilet, and rizz—which might as well feel like an alien language, or videos with the most random plots; brain rot is all about being consuming anything on your algorithm because you are all about doing it for the plot.
But is it okay for your mental health to normalise the consumption of this type of content?
In an interview with HT, Dr Rajiv Mehta, Vice-Chairperson of Psychiatry at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, delved deeper into this popular concept of brain rot and its consequences.
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Oxford 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.’
Dr Mehta elaborated on this and explained, “As the name itself suggests the brain starts getting ‘rotten’ which means the brain is unable to produce new ideas or apply intelligence to situations or do difficult tasks independently and so on.” Such low-quality content demands little mental effort and drives the spiral of passive consumption. A sort of inertia develops from this passive, low-energy consumption, where you don’t have to think.
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But it’s not all rosy and rad when you indulge in brain rot regularly. Dr Mehta explained, “As the saying goes ‘as the company so the colour’, similarly when a person is absorbed in low-quality content of digital media the person becomes incapable of generating high-quality thoughts or thinking independently. The individual tends to take help of the gadgets even for similar tasks for example children taking help of calculator while performing even simple mathematical calculation.”
This mental dependency goes beyond simple entertainment and can affect critical and creative thinking, as well as the ability to process information independently. Individuals begin to rely on digital media more frequently as a way to avoid mental effort, further getting wrapped up in this passive consumption. This creates an unhealthy dependency, as Dr Mehta pointed out, leading to a reduction in critical thinking or doing even the simplest tasks.
Just because everyone’s hyping up a certain type of content doesn’t mean you have to hop on the bandwagon. Everything on the internet is often a fleeting fad that eventually fizzles out, but in the process, it can harm your mental wellbeing.
Dr Mehta suggested, “The screen can be used for professional as well as non-professional purposes. It is the non-professional or non-academic use which is causing the brain rot. The solution lies in the controlled use of screen time or digital medium. Fix a time slot for its non-professional you. Use alarms or external clues to limit its use. Involve yourself in non-screen rejuvenation activities like meeting friends, pursuing hobbies, going to the gym etc. Keep a particular time free of gadgets like make a habit of having a device-free dinner where the families sit together from the time till serving the food till four dinner walk and during this time there should be no use of any gadgets.”
Reclaim your digital consumption by being mindful of what you consume and how much you consume. Brain rot and everything is all fun in good name but it’s important to be careful with how much you indulge it.