YOUR BRAIN NEEDS NUTRITION, NOT DIGITAL WASTE

This is a Response to the Brain Rot wikithon

Do you often spend hours just scrolling the cellphone screen aimlessly on Instagram Reels or TikTok? If yes, maybe you are experiencing what is called brain rot. This term has just been named as the word or phrase of the year by Oxford University Press.

Brain rot refers to the bad effects caused by excessive consumption of low-quality online content, especially from social media such as other digital media today. This term is popular because its use increased by 230% from 2023 to 2024.

According to Oxford University psychologist and professor, Andrew Przybylski, this term is "a symptom of the era we are living in." Of course, because who is not familiar with the feeling of "empty" after hours of watching short videos that are actually not so important? Then what exactly is the brain rot phenomenon? Here is the explanation.

Brain rot is a term that describes a decrease in a person's mental or intellectual ability, which is considered to occur due to consuming too much trivial or unchallenging things. This term first appeared in 1854 in the book Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

In his book, Thoreau criticizes society's tendency to ignore complex or deep ideas, and prefers easy and simple things. He sees this as a sign of declining human efforts to think deeply and seriously.

Simply put, brain rot can be interpreted as "intellectual laziness" due to the habit of consuming content that does not trigger critical or creative thinking.

The Cause of "BRAIN ROT!" 𝙍𝘼𝙍𝙀 𝘼𝙉𝘿 𝙎𝙃𝘼𝙇𝙇𝙊𝙒 𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙉𝙏 : content that is not informative, not educational, or only momentary entertainment can reduce the brain's ability to think critically and deeply, especially today's children such as gen z let alone the alpha gene consider social media content to be useful

𝘾𝙊𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙉𝙏 𝙎𝙐𝘾𝙃 𝘼𝙎 𝙍𝙀𝙋𝙀𝙏𝙄𝙏𝙄𝙑𝙀 𝙎𝙃𝙊𝙍𝙏 𝙑𝙄𝘿𝙀𝙊𝙎 : memes, or viral trends often do not require complex thinking and can make the brain get used to superficial stimuli, even the trend is followed by many. There are so many who follow the trend that is not useful.

HOW TO OVERCOME BRAIN ROT

𝙇𝙄𝙈𝙄𝙏 𝙎𝘾𝙍𝙀𝙀𝙉 𝙏𝙄𝙈𝙀 : Use a feature that can limit screen time.