Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

In 2024, “brain rot” went from an online meme to the Oxford Word of the Year.

Doomscrolling, zombie scrolling, and dopamine-driven streams of low-quality content are producing measurable cognitive impairment across an entire generation.

‘Brain rot’ is defined as “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.”

Our experts noticed that ‘brain rot’ gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024.

The first recorded use of ‘brain rot’ was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau’s book Walden, which reports his experiences of living a simple lifestyle in the natural world. As part of his conclusions, Thoreau criticizes society’s tendency to devalue complex ideas, or those that can be interpreted in multiple ways, in favour of simple ones, and sees this as indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort: “While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”

Now, a peer-reviewed paper titled, Demystifying the New Dilemma of Brain Rot in the Digital Era: A Review, confirms that brain rot is real: the digital environment is chemically, cognitively, and psychologically degrading the developing human brain. And the damage is measurable.

According to the study, brain rot isn’t a meme. It’s a documented state of cognitive atrophy, driven by overstimulation, dopamine feedback loops, and nonstop exposure to low-quality digital content.

The authors conducted a rapid review, systematically analyzing 381 studies, filtering to 35 high-quality papers published between 2023–2024. Here’s what they found:

The Core Mechanism: Overstimulation + Dopamine Feedback Loops

The review shows that young people now average 6.5 hours per day online — primarily on algorithm-driven platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and endless-scroll feeds engineered for split-second novelty.

Most of the content involves rapid, low-information stimuli: ultrashort videos, memes, reaction clips, and trivial entertainment fragments that provide novelty without cognitive substance.

These platforms deliver rapid bursts of artificially rewarding stimuli, creating a cycle of:

• Constant cognitive overstimulation

  The brain never enters a “rest” mode or deeper thought state.

• Weakening of working memory

  Information is consumed too quickly to be consolidated.

• Fragmented attention networks

  Short-form content trains the mind to expect constant novelty.

• Difficulty processing long or complex information

  Deep reading and sustained focus become neurologically harder.

• Mental fatigue & reduced executive function

  Chronic overstimulation taxes the prefrontal cortex — the center of planning, reasoning, and self-regulation.

The study describes this as a shift from healthy, top-down cognitive control to bottom-up, dopamine-seeking impulsivity.

Doomscrolling: Chronic Exposure to Negative, Threatening, or Grotesque Content

Many people casually use the term, but the study provides a precise functional definition:

Doomscrolling = the compulsive consumption of emotionally negative or threat-based content.

Doomscrolling produces:

• Persistent anxiety and hypervigilance
  The brain remains locked in a threat-detection mode.
• Rumination loops
  Negative information gets replayed mentally.
• Physiological stress responses
  Chronic cortisol elevation impairs cognition.
• Reduced memory formation
  Stress disrupts hippocampal consolidation.
• Attentional fragmentation
  The brain becomes primed for scanning, not focusing.

According to the review, doomscrolling directly impairs working memory, emotional regulation, and sustained attention, accelerating cognitive wear-and-tear.

Zombie Scrolling: The Dissociative “Mindless Drift” That Damages Cognition

Doomscrolling is emotionally intense. Zombie scrolling is emotionally empty.

Zombie scrolling = passive, intentionless, dissociative swiping through content with no goal, awareness, or engagement.

Zombie scrolling is associated with:

• Dissociation
  The mind drifts, reducing present-moment awareness.
• Working-memory depletion
  Mindless consumption offers no cognitive stimulation.
• Reduced attentional control
  The brain becomes conditioned to effortless, low-value input.
• Emotional numbing & detachment
  Pleasure/reward pathways become desensitized.
• Diminished cognitive engagement
  The brain stops initiating deeper thought patterns.

The review notes that zombie scrolling may be even more insidious because users don’t feel stressed, so they underestimate the damage — yet the cognitive decline accumulates quietly over time.

Preclinical Dementia Signatures Are Appearing in Younger Generations

A striking findings of the review is that digital-era cognitive decline now mirrors several early dementia–like neurobiological patterns. Across neuroimaging and behavioral studies, excessive digital exposure is linked to reduced hippocampal engagement, producing shallow, fragmented memory formation rather than durable consolidation.

At the same time, prefrontal cortex function—which governs planning, inhibition, and decision-making—shows measurable degradation under chronic multitasking and rapid-fire media input.

This constant overstimulation imposes a chronic cognitive load on the neocortex, creating patterns consistent with accelerated cognitive aging. Notably, several longitudinal findings suggest an elevated lifetime risk of cognitive decline, indicating these effects may not be transient. These changes are well-documented through fMRI and controlled studies included in the review, demonstrating that preclinical neurodegenerative signatures are already emerging in younger populations.

Brain Rot: A Real Neurocognitive Syndrome

The study shows a clear, repeatable pattern: excessive digital exposure to low-quality content degrades working memory, sustained attention, executive function, problem-solving, and emotional regulation. Constant notifications and rapid content switching impair information holding and focus, while overstimulation weakens planning, self-control, and cognitive flexibility.

Both doomscrolling’s emotional overload and zombie scrolling’s emotional emptiness destabilize the central nervous system, producing a more rigid, impulsive, and cognitively inefficient brain. Adolescents exhibit the most severe deficits, underscoring the risk of long-term impact.

The evidence confirms brain rot is a real, emerging early, accelerating quickly, and consuming a generation.

This is one of the core reasons why cognitive disability is now a public health concern in the United States. Cognitive impairment is skyrocketing with no end in sight:

New Study Finds Cognitive Impairment Is Skyrocketing Across America Nicolas Hulscher, MPH · Nov 4 Read full story

Widespread cognitive decline before adulthood may soon become the norm as AI-generated “brain rot” content begins to drastically proliferate.

Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Epidemiologist and Foundation Administrator, McCullough Foundation

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Nicole Silverio

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss is reportedly planning to dramatically change the network’s coverage to eliminate left-wing bias and make the newsroom more efficient.

Weiss has been handed a mandate for change by Paramount SkyDance’s David Ellison, the CEO of CBS News’ parent company, which bought her company, The Free Press, for $150 million, according to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Ellison wants Weiss to bring “news that reflects reality” and journalism that “doesn’t seek to demonize, but seeks to understand.”

“I wanna blow things up,” Weiss has reportedly told her colleagues during meetings.

During the hiring process, Weiss has reached out to outside talent directly rather than speaking to their agents, which is considered the traditional method of communication, according to the WSJ. She has also reportedly been highly involved in booking guests in an attempt to fix the network’s ratings and make a lasting change.

Weiss is focused on trying to reshape “CBS Evening News,” which has consistently ranked third place in comparison to the evening programs on ABC News and NBC News. “CBS Evening News” typically averages around 4 million total viewers. On the week of November 3, the program garnered 4.2 million total viewers and 564,000 viewers in the 25 to 54 key demographic, while “NBC Nightly News” and “ABC World News Tonight” averaged 7.2 million and 6.6 million total viewers, as well as 929,000 and 883,000 in the 25-54 demo, according to AdWeek.

John Dickerson, who currently hosts “CBS Evening News,” announced on Oct. 27 that he will be departing the network in January. Weiss has reportedly considered poaching CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Fox News’ Bret Baier, though Baier said he will remain at Fox News in the short-term since his contract goes through the end of 2028, according to the WSJ.

A source close to Cooper told the WSJ that the CNN host is not interested in hosting “CBS Evening News.”

“CBS Mornings” host Gayle King’s contract is up in early 2026, prompting Weiss to reportedly consider finding a cheaper alternative to her $15 million salary, according to WSJ.

The median age of viewers who watch CBS News is 58 years old, according to a Pew Research survey.

When she stepped into her role, Weiss sent emails to staff asking them to outline their jobs and provide feedback on “how we can make CBS News the most trusted news organization in America and the world.” Weiss said she would have had to “throw in the towel a very, very long time ago” if she were concerned about the negative press her decisions will receive.

Approximately 100 staffers were laid off once Weiss took over in October, which were part of Paramount’s layoffs of about 1,000 employees. The CBS News Race and Culture Unit, founded in July 2020, was completely wiped out as part of the layoffs.