In recent years, a new genre of content known as “brainrot” has emerged and spread many impacts on both kids and teens. However, there are negative impacts like restricted cognitive development on kids as they are consuming too much of this useless content.
Although children’s addiction to their screens has been around for a long time, the problem arises with every new generation, with Gen Alpha being the reason brainrot is so widespread. This screen epidemic is from a collection of many factors, including inattentive parents and addicting content.
Brainrot has been a relevant topic since 2023, when this form of so-called braindead content was first coined as a term. Although many debate on which brain rot was the first of its genre, many would argue that everything started with “skibidi toilet” as it got many younger kids addicted to their screens and changed their behavior drastically because of their devices.
Even though this has always been a prevalent issue, this instance became very popular as videos often showed kids throwing tantrums and acting wild when they were without their devices and “skibidi toilet,” a show with little to no fundamental value. Because of this, many began to joke about these videos describing this type of content as “brain rot,” since the kids’ brains were seemingly rotting because they were going crazy from watching so much of it.
Scientifically, there is no proof or evidence of real rotting in the brain, as it is just a comical term. However, this doesn’t mean it’s healthy in any way, a screen addiction features the same symptoms as a substance addiction such as withdrawal, and the abundance of short-form content can easily destroy a kid’s attention span and dopamine receptors.
This topic has many sides and perspectives, so let’s see what students at Sartell think about brain rot.
Q&A
Q: What do you consider to be brain rot and how do you feel about it?
Grant Traver, Junior: “Brainrot would be the current state of memes on Instagram reels or TikTok like Skibidi toilet or Quandale Dingle or things like Fanum Tax, it’s basically these words that don’t make sense but people find funny.”
Lily Breitkreutz, Junior: “Um, skibidi toilet and I don’t know, I don’t really think about it that much, so I don’t have an opinion on it.”
Molly Chappel, Junior: “I consider Brainrot to be any TikTok and memes that get overplayed and get way too much popularity and start to get overused, if that makes sense. I think it’s weird that it’s called brainrot, like it’s honestly just something like memes, I don’t know.”
Q: How much brain rot would you say you consume per day?
Grant (Junior): “Per day, I probably consume around half an hour to an hour of brainrot.”
Lily (Junior): “It depends on how much I’m on like Instagram reels.”
Molly (Junior): “Zero because I don’t believe in brainrot.”
Q: How much impact do you think brain rot has on kids?
Grant, (Junior): “I think Brainrot has a lot of impact on kids because especially younger kids like Gen Alpha, they’re growing up with brainrot. And it may affect their sense of humor or their mental state as they grow up.”
Lily (Junior): “A lot, like their attitude changes because of it.”
Molly (Junior): “Um, I don’t think they are impacted much by it, actually no I do think they are impacted by it because TikTok is rotting the brains.”
Overall, it’s maybe a bit harsh to name this occurrence “brainrot” for what it is, but even though the internet and its trends can make brainrot appear as something to joke about with terms like “Evil Jonkler” it’s nevertheless ruining kids’ lives especially when their parents cannot step in. Agreed upon by research and the common opinion is that brainrot is still quite horrible for kids and that kids should stop consuming it.
