How ‘Brain Rot’ Rots Our Brains

Artificial intelligence has rapidly been growing within the past few years and has seen immense changes from when it first arose. Since before the pandemic artificial intelligence was known but not to the extent it is now. Opening social media platforms like X or Instagram you are bound to be shown by there algorithms a video created by AI and you may not even know. Priorly social media was filled with unique imagery which showcased creators creativity and uniqueness. However, with short form content artificially being produced in such large quantities at the same or even better quality than creators where does this leave us as a society?

This type of content shapes the way our mind and interests without us even knowing. The effects of these types of contents are heavily seen in our young people of today. Let's look at what the data has to say about this, the American Psychological Association said in one of its recent studies states “Data from 98,299 participants across 71 studies found that the more short-form content a person watches, the poorer cognitive performances they had in terms of attention and inhibitory control - meaning the more complex they found it to focus.”. In other words, there is a correlation between the amount of short form content watched and their cognitive performance. This can affect not only our attention span but also our ability to critically think and our ability to learn new skills.

The reality of this issue becomes more alarming when taking into account that many of the audience is children and adolescents. Data from the National Library of Medicine reports that Social media use by youth is nearly universal. Up to 95% of youth ages 13–17 report using a social media platform, with more than a third saying they use social media “almost constantly.”2 Although age 13 is commonly the required minimum age used by social media platforms in the U.S.,3 nearly 40% of children ages 8–12 use social media”. In other words, the majority of children under the age of 17 use social media platforms despite age restrictions, this is concerning the effects this has on the young adult demographic. However, children are more prone and susceptible at these ages to these effects. This could in turn lead to long term issues stunting their growth, ability to learn and advance in life later.

In conclusion, the short form artificially generated content is

nothing but detrimental to us when consumed in the ways it is currently. Now begging the question, what do we do now?