Yes, “Brain Rot” Content Is As Bad As It Sounds

Why we should hold our children’s content to a higher standard

For parents of kids of elementary age or younger, managing screen time is a lot easier… or is it?

I know when my children were young, I thought managing their screens came down to 2 things: 1) limiting their time so they aren’t watching too much and 2) making sure they aren’t watching anything violent or sexual. If the content was silly or mindless, so what? After all, I watched cartoons as a kid, and I turned out fine. And now, as an adult, I had my own “mindless content,” shows I would watch to unwind after the kids went to bed.

Here’s the thing that I didn’t realize then that I do now: the “mindless” content our children are being exposed to today—especially on YouTube—is not the same as the silly, escapist reality shows that we adults sometimes watch. The short and (I’ll just say it) stupid videos our children are watching on YouTube aren’t just wasting their time; they are actually harming their brains.

In fact, there’s a word for this particular kind of content: brain rot. And brain rot is having such a profound impact on our children at large that it actually was named the Oxford Dictionary’s 2024 Word of the Year.

While it might sound like a word our grandmothers might have used to describe the “newfangled” technologies of our heyday, make no mistake, brain rot and online brain rot content are as serious as the name implies. They are proven gateways to screen overuse and addiction and all the brain-altering effects that come with them.

What is brain rot?

Since it was the Oxford Dictionary that chose “brain rot” as their word of the year, let’s use their definition:

Brain rot is the “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.”

To translate that a bit, brain rot is what happens to a child’s brain when they watch too much of the stupid content that kids are drawn to, especially on platforms like YouTube. This content often lacks a clear story or plotline but is attention-grabbing and easy to watch… and watch… and watch. (If you want to see examples of some popular brain rot content at the moment, give “Stickman vs Minecraft” or “Skibidi Toilet” a search. The crude, potty humor, exaggerated facial expressions, and sound effects are horrifying, to say the least.)

Why is brain rot so attractive?

As adults, it can be hard to understand what our kids find so appealing about toilets with heads inside them (or whatever other brain rot content they are consuming), but there are actually many reasons our children are so drawn to these types of videos, including:

1. They’re pure sensory stimulation. Children’s brains, especially young children’s brains, are wired for novelty, and these videos are nothing if not novel and unexpected. They are designed to contain as many bright colors, quick movements, and loud, goofy sound effects as possible to grab and sustain attention.

2. They require no effort. These videos are silly, nonsensical, and easy to watch. Your child doesn’t have to put in any effort, sustained focus, or emotional investment into watching, yet they still get all the reward of a massive dopamine rush.

3. The algorithm learns what they like… and gives them more. When it comes to brain rot content, our children don’t even have to put in the effort of finding it. Once they start watching, the algorithm learns exactly what they like and cues the next stupid video up on autoplay.

4. FOMO. Brain rot content isn’t just occupying a good amount of our young kids’ free time; it’s also driving a lot of the youth culture and slang, with words like “skibidi,” “rizz,” “sigma,” and “no cap” stemming directly from popular brain rot content. Middle schoolers are especially driven by a need to fit in with their peers, and for many, that means keeping up with the latest brain rot content to stay socially relevant with other brain rot kids.

Why is brain rot different?

So we adults don’t “get” brain rot content. Doesn't every generation have some sort of hobby or pastime that made older generations turn their nose and clutch their pearls? Is brain rot content really so much different than rock ‘n roll was years ago? Yes. Absolutely.

Whether or not you like rock ‘n roll, it was meant to express something and tell a story, and it took a tremendous amount of time, creativity, and skill to write and perform a song. Brain rot content is not meant to express anything. There is no creativity or skill involved. It’s not designed to make us think; in fact, its #1 goal is mindless attention.

Brain rot content is designed to appeal to and hijack the more primal area of our brain—the reward center—and when consumed regularly, it profoundly impacts children’s:

• Attention spans

• Problem-solving skills

• Ability to learn and retain information

• Motivation for real-world experiences

• Overall curiosity for the world around them

And when you are talking about young, developing brains, these effects can be lifelong.

Our children are the content company they keep. Just as we would step in with a negative or damaging friend relationship, we need to step in and put an end to time spent with damaging content.

Brain rot is a gateway

Children who consume brain rot content are more likely to have problematic digital media use (aka the start of media addiction). This is because brain rot is a gateway digital drug, delivering unnatural levels of dopamine to developing little brains. By consuming brain rot content at young ages, our children grow accustomed to the unnatural levels of dopamine it provides. Over time, they will get bored of the brain rot content and look to “get their fix” in other ways (i.e. through more disturbing videos on YouTube, social media, or video games). Take it from someone who had a video game addict for a son: these addictions don’t start with first-person shooter games. They start with mindless screen activity that often looks silly or cute to the outside observer. And once you say “yes” to one form of time-wasting content, it becomes that much harder to say no to the next.

Brain rot is also a gateway to darker, potentially even traumatizing content. The more time children spend on sites that provide brain rot content, the more likely it is that the algorithms that control these sites will serve them violent or pornographic content. Just like video game addictions, porn addictions don’t often start with a child deciding to search for porn one day. In fact, if I were a betting woman, I would wager a strong link between teenage porn addiction and a history of brain rot content in the elementary and middle school years.

How to rid your home of brain rot

Just because brain rot content may be proliferating YouTube and even slang culture does not mean it has to proliferate your home, at least not any longer. Here are 4 things you can do today to save your kids from brain rot.

1. Remove access to personal screens. In general, the smaller the screen, the more dopaminergic (or dopamine-producing) it is. With young kids, the biggest offenders are iPads and access to parents’ iPhones. Take these away. Your kids don’t need them, and more than that, they cannot say no to them. We must say no for them. A single, shared screen for family viewing that you control is plenty of screen access for young children.

2. Replace screen dopamine with healthy dopamine. Dopamine isn’t bad. In fact, our brains need it to survive. The levels of dopamine screens produce, however, are unhealthy and fuel screen overuse and addiction. Redirect your child toward activities that produce healthy levels of dopamine, like being outside, playing with friends in person, learning an instrument, participating in sports, and reading books.

3. Identify triggers and interrupt them. If you examine your child’s routine, you’ll likely find there are certain times of day when your child is more drawn to this mindless content. For many kids, it’s right after school or right after dinner. If you can identify triggers in your routine, you can disrupt them. Instead of having them come straight home after school, stop at the park, or go for a walk as a family after dinner. Or, for the ultimate trigger disrupter, get a new family pet for them to love and take care of.

4. Introduce grit-building activities. Brain rot content is no effort, high reward. Begin to teach your children the value and reward that come from working hard and building a skill. Focus on activities that require sustained effort over time. Sports, art, and music are common examples, but you could also try non-conventional activities like woodworking, chess, or planting and growing a garden.

Above all, hold your child’s content to a higher standard

If you take away one lesson from this post, I hope it’s this: The content we consume—especially as children—can profoundly influence us. In fact, “content” in the form of oral storytelling, legends, and mythologies has been how we have imparted cultural values to our children for thousands of years. Humans are hardwired to learn from stories.

While we no longer have bards or traveling troubadours, we do have books, television, and movies, all of which influence our children’s values and the way they view the world and their role within it. As parents, it's critical that we hold this content to a higher standard, and when we do opt for screen time, we must remember that co-viewing is best.

Not all screen time is bad, but we need to be careful about what we let into little minds. Maybe it’s time we take a lesson from our grandparents—step away from the noise, seek to engage our brains instead of shutting them off, educate our children about the harms of toxic screens, and remember that real people and real experiences are always more exciting than characters on a screen.

If you’re concerned about your child’s YouTube (or video game or social media) use, start with our 7-Day Reset, then move on to the 30-Day Detox. If you’re like so many families we’ve worked with, this is all it takes to usher in a lifetime of screen peace. To get access to the 7-Day Reset, become a member of our free Connect group. There, you’ll also be able to chat with and get support from like-minded families. Because when we say, “We’ve got your back,” we really mean it.

ScreenStrong Resources

Podcast - “The Opt-Out Movement: Simplifying Family Life in the Digital Age with Erin Loechner ”

Podcast - “Understanding Dopamine in Developing Brains with Dr. Anna Lembke”

Melanie Hempe, BSN, is the founder of ScreenStrong, a nonprofit organization, and the author of the Kids’ Brains and Screens Series for students and parents. She is dedicated to preventing and reversing childhood screen addictions by providing scientific evidence and community for families around the globe. Her educational material is filled with everything she wished she had known before her oldest child suffered from a screen addiction. ScreenStrong has created what every family needs—education and the community—to skip toxic screens through adolescence so teens can reach their full potential.

Visit here for family resource materials and here for our Phone-Free Schools Guide, and visit ScreenStrong.org to learn more and join the community that is saving childhood.