REVIEW

A new study seems to prove what we've all suspected: bingeing on short-form videos is bad for our brains. But not all experts are convinced…

Scrolling through endless short videos may be a bad habit, but whether it causes ‘brain rot’ is harder to confirm

REALITY CHECK

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE HEADLINES

Named as the Oxford Word of the Year for 2024, ‘brain rot’ is defined as the “supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state” as a result of watching too much “trivial or unchallenging” content online, such as TikTok or Instagram Reels. The term is often bandied around in a jokey fashion, but what if there’s a grain of truth to it?

That's the seemingly alarming implication of a new study, published by a large team of brain scientists based at Tianjin Normal University in China.

WHAT DID THE STUDY FIND?

The researchers scanned the brains of 111 students, aged between 17 and 30, all regular consumers of the short videos on platforms like TikTok. Participants were asked to complete a questionnaire about their habits of watching short-form online content, which included indicating how much they agreed with statements such as “My life would feel empty without short videos” and “Not being able to watch short videos would be as painful as losing a friend”.

“Envy might make someone more likely to head to TikTok”