Is social media causing 'brain rot'?

According to the Oxford University Press, brain rot is an internet slang term that refers to "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state," particularly after spending too much time online, especially on social media.

Although research in this area is still relatively new, a 2025 study published in Translational Psychiatry found that more screen use was associated with reduced cortical thickness in certain areas of the brain. The cortex is the part of the brain involved in memory, higher-level thinking, and decision-making.

Other studies have also found that scrolling short-form videos on TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube Shorts can negatively affect attention, memory, and mental health.

For example, a recent review of 71 studies found that increased use of short-form videos was associated with worse cognition, especially when it came to attention span and impulse control, and greater symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and loneliness. Another review of 14 studies found that heavy use of short-term videos was associated with shorter attention spans and worsened academic performance.

"There's a kernel of important truth in what sounds like a silly term," said Catherine Price, author of the book How to Break Up With Your Phone. She added that smartphones have made people more easily distracted, which likely "accounts for a lot of the stress and exhaustion that many people experience these days."

"It's what you're doing on the screen that matters," said Mitch Prinstein, a senior science adviser to the American Psychological Association and professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Although there is growing concern about the potential impact of social media on the brain, researchers say the long-term effects are still unclear and more studies are needed to uncover who is most vulnerable, whether the effects are permanent, and which mechanisms could be the most harmful.

"It might be too early to claim universal doom," said Nidhi Gupta, a pediatric endocrinologist who researches the effects of screen time. "The research for alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs took 75 years or more to develop. But I would be surprised if, in the next five to 10 years, we do not have similar signs validating the moral panic that we have around short-form videos."

To mitigate the potential risks of too much social media use, experts offer a few tips:

• Avoid using screens in the bedroom. Using your phone or other devices in bed can disrupt sleep, which can then impact your physical and mental health.
• Monitor and regulate your screen time. Although watching 10 minutes of online videos may be harmless, if you're spending hours on videos, you might need to reassess how you use your device or a particular app.
• Curate your social media feeds. Focusing on positive instead of negative content online will be more beneficial for your mental health and mood.
• Incorporate more non-digital activities into your daily life. Spending time outdoors, writing, and playing music are all good examples of non-digital activities.

Overall, "our attention spans are finite, and when we have so much content competing for our attention span, something essential is going to be missed, whether it is health, whether it is work, relationships or sleep," Gupta said. "We download that low-quality digital media, that digital noise, into our brain space."