Watching nonsensical content is, in fact, a cry for help

We spoke with young people aged 13 to 26 about their experiences with the phenomenon of "brain rot." The findings show that we are dealing with a generation that is deeply aware of the effects of this phenomenon on their minds. This generation is trapped in a social media environment imposed on them, and is in fact trying to break free from it. "Watching nonsensical content is, in fact, a cry for help" first appeared on Safir Arjan.

According to Ambassador Arjan, is the term "brain rot" just a sign of a new moral controversy about younger media consumption that adults do not understand, or is this phenomenon really destroying the minds of teenagers? My research and that of my colleague, Anna Gottsfried, show that it is not that simple.

We talked to young people aged 13 to 26 about their experiences of the "brain rot" phenomenon. The findings show that we are facing a generation that is deeply aware of the effects of this phenomenon on their minds. This generation is involved in the environment of social networks that have been imposed on them and they are trying to get rid of it.

The public concern about brain rot sees the root of the problem in the content itself; With the idea that since Generation Z is young and impressionable, watching absurd and low-quality videos will lead to their cognitive decline. But our findings from the participants' words showed that the opposite is true: it is the user's state of mind that is decisive; Constantly scrolling through feeds engineered by algorithms leads to the experience of “brain rot”; A foggy state in which a person has lost the power of choice and aimlessly devours whatever is presented to them.

Brain rot is the birth of platforms like Tik Tok and YouTube; Where your success is directly measured by the amount of attention you attract. And the interesting point in the interviews was how well Nesal Z understands this game. In the conversations with this generation, we were faced with deep and of course bitter analyzes that show their reaction to the cultural background and the heavy informational environment that they remember; Like the previous generations, they seek to create something from the conditions imposed on themselves; In this particular case, they have embraced a kind of "deliberate nonsense".

Therefore, contrary to the popular belief that the interaction of Generation Z with absurd and low-quality content is the cause of their cognitive decline, it is the "state of mind" that prevails. Generation Z gets tired and mentally foggy after browsing algorithmic feeds for a long time and starts consuming these videos. This generation is painfully aware of the destructive effects of this space, and watching these contents is not a sign of ignorance, but a sign of reaching a dead end in an imposed environment.

The root of the problem lies in the infrastructure of social networks, which is systematically optimized for the "cognitive drain" of users to turn their attention into a commodity. Solving this problem is not possible with personal control programs and requires top-down structural reform and legislation (similar to the control of the tobacco industry). Technology companies should focus on the quality of user experience instead of measuring "time spent"; Because the behavior of Generation Z is exactly the product of the engineering of this system, and the phenomenon of brain decay is actually a cry for help.