Is society as people know it, crumbling from social media’s immense impact on the younger generation? This may be an extremely embarrassing article to write, but it is important nonetheless. To fully understand the negative mental toll on people, one must first know what it is. Brainrot is a term used to depict content online of low quality that is senseless and confusing. The term gained immense popularity in 2023 by the creation of a YouTube series called Skibidi Toilet. Since then, popular terms relating to the broader term ‘brain rot’ have been heavily associated with Generation Alpha, born between the early 2010s to the mid-2020s. A chain reaction from the popularization of these terms has caused great negative impacts and what some may call, the downfall of society. 

A notable change has been the desensitization to absurdity. The extensive exposure to absurd content with no real positive influence has caused a majority of social media to lose the urge to create deep and thought-provoking content. People have gotten accustomed to creating meaningless content for the sole purpose of gaining views. It has slowly caused young children to be constantly surrounded by content that does not require brain power and is turning them into mindless zombies many know as “iPad kids”. Grade 11 student, Rumaisa Hasan, states: “Trends associated with brain rot die extremely quickly compared to previous trends causing people to create more insane videos each time to get views.”

The enormous amount of absurd content has resulted in intense overstimulation. The majority of these videos are bizarre, strange, and unpredictable. The human brain reacts to the absurdity and creates a loop causing the person viewing to find it entertaining and addictive. We see this a lot in children today. This causes people to have less desire for activities that are meaningful, purposeful, and slower. People become addicted to the unpredictable and fast nature of brain rot. 

Brainrot has normalized apathy regarding real-world issues. People, especially children, and teens, are slowly conditioned to become detached from the world and find serious topics humorous and ironic. Nothing is taken seriously and everything has become viewed as a joke. It causes a shallow understanding of important topics leading to people viewing science, history, equital issues, and more as one big hilarious joke because everything around them has become so absurd that none

Along with immense apathy toward the world, people have lost great empathy towards other people. When people online create videos talking about serious topics about their life and and people around them, the video is instantly received by the public as ‘humourous’. Comments will be flooded with brain-rot terms, as people have a lot all regard for those around them. It has become “funny” to think only about yourself. Grade 11 student, Riyana Ahmed, states: “Brainrot devalues other people’s thoughts and opinions. In the first stages of the trend’s popularity, people used it to express themselves. However now, it has been even more dumbed down to random nonsensical words and phrases. Brain rot has also caused people to become dehumanized. People are so quick to add humor to take away the sentimental and emotional value people have toward others.”