Even when watching fun and entertaining content, you are always at risk of seeing something distasteful. Social media has taken off in the past decade, especially among teenagers. As with all things in life, social media also has a downside to it. If you have been on social media, you have most likely seen the Brain Rot epidemic spread. Brain rot is useless terminology used on the internet. With teenagers spending hours on social media platforms scrolling away, they are often exposed to this type of useless content. In this article, we will be talking about how aimlessly scrolling on the internet and consuming useless information can have numerous negative effects on teenagers.
With Addicting social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, it is extremely hard for students to set limits on their time on the internet. According to a study done by SOAX.com, teens spend nearly three hours scrolling on social media platforms. If 3 of these hours out of the 9 hours on the internet go to scrolling on social media platforms, teens are bound to come across some type of useless content that does no good for them and only affects them negatively.
One of the main negative side effects that Brain rot internet has on teens, is its impact on the mental side. When falling into the trap of using social media to amuse your boredom, a short harmless video can soon become a factor that is negatively impacting how you function when completing day-to-day tasks. According to “Doom scrolling: A Habit You Should Break,” “Scrolling without control on social media has negative effects on the basic cognitive function.” Due to TikTok, Insta reels and YouTube shorts being short, easy-to-access entertaining videos, teens spend too much time on these videos, most being useless content, resulting in them having trouble staying focused on longer tasks and requiring more attention to detail. As a result, this will hurt areas like Schoolwork, tests, Sports, and many other tasks that require focus for extended periods to get satisfactory results.
Not only does this type of content have an impact on basic cognitive functions like attention span, but also has a significant impact on teens’ moods and mental state. To many, when completing a task like going to the gym or cleaning your room it raises their mood and helps them stay productive and leads to a better day. With social media and quick short-form videos taking up so much time of your day, these tasks will be put to the side causing you to miss out on opportunities to better yourself and your mood. Although this already seems bad, when truly understanding the fact that a big fraction of the time spent on the internet for many is spent on these short-form entertainment videos, that in most cases do not benefit you in any way and only take up your precious time, it highlights that point of how much these videos are affecting your day to day lives.
Overall, the new internet epidemic of brain rot has many downsides that come along with it. From it affecting how our basic cognitive functions work to affect the mental state and moods of teens, it seems to be a problem that needs solving for now. Only time will tell the course of brain rot will take for years to come.
