The internet has dominated senior Gabby Peterman’s leisure time ever since she was four years old. She can vividly recall the Minecraft YouTube videos she watched as a child from creators like PopularMMOs and Aphmau — whose humorous and imaginative gameplay kept many a child entertained for hours — and how she was allowed to get TikTok when she was only 11.
Being given unfettered access to the internet at such a young age caused her online interests to become habits as she grew older. TikTok managed to follow her all the way to high school, and now its content has manifested itself in the bizarre form of slang and humor that Peterman and her peers describe as “brain rot.”
“I would just [define it] as something that means nothing … I’ll look at something and it’s a bald dog and it just says ‘yas’ and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is absolutely funny,’” Peterman said.
Brain rot (or just “brainrot”) is a term that has surprisingly existed for years before phrases like “fanum tax” and “skibidi” became regular parts of teenage lexicon. It first appeared online as early as 2007 to describe certain (allegedly) mentally degrading technological behaviors, like playing video games and watching reality TV. However, the word has regained popularity again recently, and it is now used to describe the specific type of senseless humor — often found on TikTok and YouTube Shorts — that Peterman describes.
Using the term “brain rot” after talking about how much time you spend on TikTok is a sort of self-deprecating humor that “chronically online” teens can relate to. Brain rot can be used two different ways: as a noun (“My ‘For You’ page is filled with brain rot”) or as an adjective to describe people or trends (“That guy is so brain rot, it’s driving me skibidi crazy”). In short, its loose definition covers lots of different things.
“Brain rot between my friends is like a joke,” Peterman said. “You watch really dumb humorous content, that’s what brain rot is to teenagers.”
Many teens use apps like TikTok to relax and watch funny videos, and Peterman believes that people of her generation have learned to limit their online time and focus on things like school when they need to. However, she also postulates that overwhelming time spent on social media may have more serious impacts on younger generations who are growing up consumed by “short-form content.”
According to Exploding Topics, children on average spend just under two hours on TikTok every day. Researchers are beginning to investigate the possible effects — including shortened attention spans — this tech use may have on kids.
“That’s what brain rot is: kids getting so much stimulation and information in such a short amount of time, like 20 seconds, [that] you’re not able to sit and comprehend what you’re hearing,” Peterman said.
In addition to time spent online, more kids have access to social media now than ever before. According to Healthy Young Minds, 18 percent of the American TikTok user base in April 2022 was teens aged 12 to 17. Psychology teacher Daria Schaffeld sees the effects of teenagers’ social media use firsthand in her classroom. According to her, the format of scrolling through posts instead of swiping demonstrates how these apps are designed to encourage maximum consumption.
“[Social media apps are] built to be addictive,” Schaffeld said. “And in a lot of ways it’s reinforcing and it’s fun, and humans like fun things.”
Other factors, like bright colors, endless posts and tailored “For You” pages that use AI to adapt to liked content, work in tandem to access our brains’ reward pathways, according to Stanford Medicine. When you get likes on a post of yours or scroll through funny videos, your brain quickly releases large amounts of dopamine from those pathways. The design of social media apps, combined with the pleasure felt from them, makes it hard to limit screen time and rest your eyes from the ads strategically placed in your feed.
However, for Schaffeld, other issues come to light when discussing the young age at which kids are using TikTok. The possible effects on mental health from things like cyber bullying is especially pertinent to her as a mother of a 12-year-old boy.
She observes her son’s desire to participate in trends and feel connected to his peers; however, she chooses to restrict him from using social media because of an online change in behavior she calls “deindividuation.”
“It’s the idea that when you’re wearing a mask, either a literal mask … or a figurative mask, when you’re hiding behind a username, we act in ways that we wouldn’t normally act because there’s this sense of bravery or confidence,” Schaffeld said.
Schaffeld brings her values regarding technology into her classroom, where she requires students to take paper notes and challenges them to learn without using their iPads. This way, she encourages them to disconnect and think critically with one another, something she hopes will aid students’ learning as well as emotional health.
However, even she admits the benefits of moving forward with technology for young people.
“It’s not going away,” says Schaffeld. “[Taking care of your] mental health and the healthy use of any piece of technology [requires learning] how to use it appropriately [and] effectively.”
