Scrolling Past Our Reality: Cognitive Decline and Desensitization in the Brain Rot Era

When enjoying our daily dose of scrolling, most of us—hopefully—are aware of the unbearable absurdity that characterizes the media we consume. At any point during our day, no matter what we are doing, we have the possibility to consume—or, arguably, to get consumed by—an abnormal quantity of information. Just by opening our phones, we are absorbed by an AI slop video about mister banana cheating on miss apple is followed by a 30 second cooking video on how to cook sweet potatoes in the air fryer followed by a report on starving children in some country, getting bombed, and begging for help. All this information just by moving our finger up, slightly, automatically, without any thought or rest. This restless exercise is consuming, or rotting, the most precious resource we own: our brain. Brain rot is a term referring to “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration” (Oxford University Press, 2024). It was introduced 200 years ago by Henry David Thoreau, but its relevance and meaning changed far beyond what its inventor could possibly have expected. Our brains, unique and powerful computers that allow us to live and to experience, are ‘rotting’. What is the future of a society made up of rotted brains? Who will win between our primitive minds and the algorithms crafted to exploit them? Our brains create meaning in an extremely complex, sometimes even meaningless world.  Absurdists would argue that what makes us human is to find meaning in a meaningless—and therefore absurd—world. To be a human is to struggle to find meaning, and our powerful brains make us well equipped for that. The world, on the other hand, seems to work in its nonsensical way: disruption, death, wars and devastation are happening on these sunny spring days as we enjoy our lunch outside in the bright sun. TikTok and Instagram reels make this ironic reality even more evident. The question is, how can our progressively rotted brains cope with the struggle to find meaning in a world that does not seem to have any meaning at all? We are passive spectators of wars, of starvation, and of two AI-generated cats getting married and having a kitten. These two polar opposite types of content are consumed in the same way, on the same platforms. What is this doing to us? Will the struggle to find meaning remain an inherent part of being a human?

Our brains are, in fact, literally rotting. We are witnessing a clear decline in some of the most important cognitive functions. Studies have shown a positive correlation between smarphone usage and daily cognitive failures, which are errors that occur during an ongoing task that is usually completed without difficulty.(Hartanto et al., 2022).  The consequences of algorithms on cognition, however, go beyond daily cognitive failures. For instance, the rise of internet use has led to shallower information processing (Carr 2011, as cited in Loh & Kanai, 2016), increasing scanning and browsing behaviours, key word spotting, and selective reading. (Liu 2005, as cited in Loh & Kanai, 2016). Hence, we are losing the ability to systematically think about information: every piece of content we consume lacks complete and profound meaning because we are unable to grasp the core of a topic. Secondly, our attention span is lowering. Social media creates an environment characterized by rapid intake of information, which is processed mostly superficially—also known as ‘doomscrolling’. This phenomenon leads to the fragmentation of attention and ruins our ability to sustain attention (Aars et al., as cited in Yousef et al., 2025). Furthermore, digital media disrupts the executive functions involved in working memory, which is fundamental for learning and retaining information (Yousef et al.,2025). Therefore, the algorithms we are exposed to every day are actively impairing our ability to process information. Paying attention for longer periods of time, processing systematically, and remembering information are necessary to search and find meaning in our existence. 

What brain rot refers to is not just the cognitive decline we are subject to. It is the devastating loss of our moral sensitivity. TikTok and Reels algorithms are feeding us poison and are exhausting our antidote by making violent content available on a daily basis. Furthermore, the content is not chosen, contrary to what would happen before Reels became popular. Exposure to this type of content has been linked with moral sensitivity changes and social behaviour changes (Irfan Muzni et al., 2025). Desensitization refers to a reduction in physiological emotional responses, as well as to changes in the injunctive norm—the perceived rightness or wrongness of an action—independently of physiological arousal. Firstly, violence exposure decreases our emotional reactivity to violence. In an experiment conducted by Carnagey et al. (2007), participants who played a violent video game before had lower heart rate and galvanic skin response while viewing filmed real violence, demonstrating physiological desensitization to violence. Desensitization may also lead to a decrease in empathetic concern. Viewing sexually violent movies leads to less empathy for victims of sexual violence several days later in male college students (Linz et al., 1988 as cited in Mrug et al., 2014). Secondly, moral desensitization happens as a result of continuous violations of a moral transgression. Repeated exposure to a description of a transgression leads to a more lenient evaluation of the moral transgression (Effron, 2022), known as the moral repetition effect. This effect is linked to affect; repeated exposure reduces the intensity of negative affect, which subsequently leads to less harsh moral judgements. Evidence in favour of the moral repetition effect has been found also in a naturalistic setting (Pillai et al., 2023). Researchers created repeated encounters with reports of moral wrongdoings, for instance a cosmetic company harming animals. After 15 days, these wrongdoings were deemed as less unethical than new wrongdoings. Hence, repeated exposure decreases the harshness of moral judgements. When observing the streamed chaos our world is in 24/7, we are left unable to perceive these disastrous violations of our moral principles as wrong. Our opinions are shifting to be much more lenient: the bright red of the blood spilled is slowly fading, the wildfires destroying our planet are as weak as the fire of a candle. As we scroll, all the moral transgressions are scrolling past us. 

In a reality where you have to perform and run to survive, a quick and efficient break on your phone to get updates is all that is keeping us alive. In doing that, we find ourselves depleted of our emotional and cognitive resources, scrolling up and up, until nothing will really be salient anymore. Reality will slowly become the dull moments between one scroll and the other, when the battery of our phone is failing and we are desperately looking for the charger. That will be our only struggle. The pursuit of meaning in a meaningless world will be a mere memory of the past.