Brain rot. That’s the English term for the feeling you get after spending too much time aimlessly scrolling through social media on your phone, and the University of Oxford has chosen it as its word of the year for 2024.
the word brain rot (something like “brain rot,” if translated into Spanish) earned the title after a vote involving more than 37,000 people, as well as public comments and an analysis of Oxford linguistic data.
In a statement published by the Oxford Dictionary, “brain rot” was defined as “the alleged deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially seen as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered trivial or unimportant.” challenging”.
Although the use of “brain rot” increased 230% this year, the word actually first appeared more than a century ago. According to Oxford University Press (OUP), “brain rot” was first used by author Henry David Thoreau in his book Waldenwhen he criticized society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas in favor of simpler ones.
“While England endeavors to cure the potato rot,” Thoreau wrote, “will not any endeavor to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” (Which would be translated something like this into English: “While England strives to cure potato rot,” Thoreau wrote, “would it not be equally necessary to combat brain rot, which spreads much more widely and fatally?”) .
Oxford linguistic experts say that brain rot gained popularity on platforms like TikTok this year, thanks to Generation Z and Generation Alpha. The frequency of use of the term grew by 230% from 2023 to 2024, according to monitoring tools. “These communities have amplified expression through social media channels, the very place that is said to cause ‘brain rot,'” Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, said in a statement. “This demonstrates some blatant self-awareness in younger generations about the detrimental impact of the social media they have inherited.”
The term is frequently used in a “humorous or self-deprecating manner by online communities,” according to Oxford University Press. This language is usually associated with words like: “sigma”, which refers to someone cool or leader; “gyatt”, an exclamation to refer to a curvy woman; and “Skibidi”, as in “Skibidi Toilet”, a term derived from a YouTube series that is now used to refer to almost anything.
At first glance, the connection to Thoreau may seem strange, but consider this: When Thoreau moved to his cabin near Walden Pond to get back to basics in 1845, he was 27 years old, the same age as the oldest members of the Generation Z.
The term has gained popularity in the last year, especially as concerns grow about the impact of over-consuming low-quality content online. In fact, earlier this year, a behavioral care provider in the United States began offering treatment for brain rotdescribing it as a condition of “brain fog, lethargy, reduced attention span, and cognitive impairment.”
The health company cited the doomscrolling (an English term that describes the act of compulsively scrolling through social media consuming negative content) and social media addiction as examples of behaviors associated with brain rotwhich could be prevented by setting limits on screen time or doing a digital “detox.”
“‘Brain rot’ reflects one of the perceived dangers of virtual life and how we are using our free time,” Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, said in Monday’s announcement.
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