I teach a course on the relationship between social media and society at Durham College. As part of their assessments, I ask my students to reflect on their social media use.
A recurring theme is that they cannot be separated from their smartphones. Many admit to spending significant time daily on social media watching short videos without a clear purpose and as a way to procrastinate on more productive activities.
There is a term for this kind of behaviour and its impact on mental health, one that was recently named Oxford Word of the Year 2024: “brain rot” — the deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially as the result of over-consuming trivial or unchallenging online content.
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