Oxford’s Word of the Year in 2024 was “brain rot.” This term refers to the deterioration of one’s intellectual or mental state, especially due to overconsumption of online content. It has become somewhat of a meme used to describe much of the social media landscape of TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube. But studies are showing content overconsumption has serious effects on our brains’ health. It turns out, we are destroying our minds by being chronically online.

A 2020 article published in the National Institute of Medicine highlighted the effects of digital technology on the brain. The study showed that some of the harmful effects of over-consuming technology include reduced attention, sleep disruption and technology addiction. Dopamine, the main chemical involved in forming addictive habits, is released when we receive pleasure from various activities. When many people spend a significant amount of time scrolling before bed, this practice leads to sleep disruption due to it continuing the dopamine cycle. Short-form content on social media is designed to release short bursts of dopamine to the brain, and without proper boundaries, we essentially numb our minds’ capacities to form pleasurable links with other activities. 

So, what can we do to counteract this? A solution is to replace our screen time before bed with reading. Reading has been shown to improve cognitive health and sleep while decreasing stress, all things that can accumulate from an excessive use of social media. Developing a bedtime routine can also be an effective strategy for building this habit and diminishing technology usage. As part of this routine, physical distance from your devices creates mental distance as well. Setting your phone away from yourself during this time will create a barrier and make its usage less incentivizing. In recognizing the degenerative effects social media overuse can have on the brain, let’s look to keep brain rot only a meme and not a reality.