If you want to witness the last vestiges of human intellect swirling down the drain, hold your nose and type the words “skibidi toilet” into YouTube. The 11-second video features an animated human head protruding from a toilet bowl while singing the nonsensical lyrics “skibidi dop dop dop yes yes.” The clip has been viewed more than 215 million times, and spawned hundreds of millions of references on TikTok and other social media.
Fitting, then, that the Oxford word of the year has just been announced as “brain rot.” As an abstract concept, brain rot is something we’re all vaguely aware of. The dictionary defines it 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.” But few people are aware of how literally technology is rotting our brains, and how decisively compulsive Internet use is destroying our gray matter.
Brain rot was portended almost 20 years ago when scientists studied the effects of a new invention called “e-mail,” specifically the impact a relentless barrage of information would have on participants’ brains. The results? Constant cognitive overload had a more negative effect than taking cannabis, with IQs of participants dropping an average of 10 points.
Photo: AFP
LIVING ONLINE
And this was prior to smartphones bringing the Internet to our fingertips, which has resulted in the average UK adult now spending at least four hours a day online (with gen Z men spending five and a half hours a day online, and gen Z women six and a half).
In recent years, an abundance of academic research from institutions including Harvard medical school, the University of Oxford and King’s College London found evidence that the Internet is shrinking our gray matter, shortening attention spans, weakening memory and distorting our cognitive processes. The areas of the brain found to be affected included “attentional capacities, as the constantly evolving stream of on-line information encourages our divided attention across multiple media sources,” “memory processes” and “social cognition.”
Paper after paper spells out how vulnerable we are to Internet-induced brain rot.
“High levels of Internet usage and heavy media multitasking are associated with decreased gray matter in prefrontal regions,” finds one.
‘DIGITAL DEMENTIA’
People with Internet addiction exhibit “structural brain changes” and “reduced gray matter.” Too much technology during brain developmental years has even been referred to by some academics as risking “digital dementia.”
In 2018, a decade of data analyzed by leading memory psychologists at Stanford University found that people who frequently engaged with multiple online platforms have reduced memory and attention spans.
And yet we seem to be doing very little to stem the tide. Earl Miller, an MIT neuroscientist and world expert on divided attention, warned in 2022 that we are now living in “a perfect storm of cognitive degradation.”
Gloria Mark, professor of informatics at the University of California and author of Attention Span, has found evidence of how drastically our ability to focus is waning. In 2004, her team of researchers found the average attention span on any screen to be two and a half minutes. In 2012, it was 75 seconds. Six years ago, it was down to 47 seconds.
This “is something that I think we should be very concerned about as a society,” she told a podcast last year.
But we’re not entirely to blame if technology is making us less intelligent. After all, it was designed to captivate us totally. Silicon Valley’s dirtiest design feature — which is everywhere once you spot it — is the infinite scroll, likened to the “bottomless soup bowl” experiment, in which participants will keep mindlessly eating from a soup bowl if it keeps refilling. An online feed that constantly “refills” manipulates the brain’s dopaminergic reward system in a similar way. These powerful dopamine-driven loops of endless “seeking” can become addictive.
What will happen if we don’t get a handle on our declining cognitive health? The former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris told US Congress in 2019 that billions of people — “a psychological footprint about the size of Christianity” — now receive their information from platforms whose business model “links their profit to how much attention they capture, creating a ‘race to the bottom of the brain stem’ to extract attention by hacking lower into our lizard brains — into dopamine, fear, outrage — to win.”
His warnings are about as stark as they come.
“Persuasive technology is a massively underestimated and powerful force shaping the world,” he said. “It has taken control of the pen of human history, and will drive us to catastrophe if we don’t take it back.”
The term brain rot was popularized online by young people who are most at risk of its effects. The fact that those who are most at risk have the most self-awareness of the problem is heartening news. The first step towards any change is understanding the problem. And there is cause to be hopeful. In recent years, anti-technology movements have gained traction, from teenagers turning to dumbphones to campaigns for a smartphone-free childhood; green shoots for a future in which we are able to reclaim our minds. So perhaps there’s more poignant meaning to Skibidi Toilet, after all: an awareness of where human intelligence currently sits. It can now go in one of two directions: up, or round the U-bend.
Jason Han says that the e-arrival card spat between South Korea and Taiwan shows that Seoul is signaling adherence to its “one-China” policy, while Taiwan’s response reflects a reciprocal approach. “Attempts to alter the diplomatic status quo often lead to tit-for-tat responses,” the analyst on international affairs tells the Taipei Times, adding that Taiwan may become more cautious in its dealings with South Korea going forward. Taipei has called on Seoul to correct its electronic entry system, which currently lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan),” warning that reciprocal measures may follow if the wording is not changed before March 31. As of yesterday,
The Portuguese never established a presence on Taiwan, but they must have traded with the indigenous people because later traders reported that the locals referred to parts of deer using Portuguese words. What goods might the Portuguese have offered their indigenous trade partners? Among them must have been slaves, for the Portuguese dealt slaves across Asia. Though we often speak of “Portuguese” ships, imagining them as picturesque vessels manned by pointy-bearded Iberians, in Asia Portuguese shipping between local destinations was crewed by Asian seamen, with a handful of white or Eurasian officers. “Even the great carracks of 1,000-2,000 tons which plied
Nuclear power is getting a second look in Southeast Asia as countries prepare to meet surging energy demand as they vie for artificial intelligence-focused data centers. Several Southeast Asian nations are reviving mothballed nuclear plans and setting ambitious targets and nearly half of the region could, if they pursue those goals, have nuclear energy in the 2030s. Even countries without current plans have signaled their interest. Southeast Asia has never produced a single watt of nuclear energy, despite long-held atomic ambitions. But that may soon change as pressure mounts to reduce emissions that contribute to climate change, while meeting growing power needs. The
It’s only half the size of its more famous counterpart in Taipei, but the Botanical Garden of the National Museum of Nature Science (NMNS, 國立自然科學博物館植物園) is surely one of urban Taiwan’s most inviting green spaces. Covering 4.5 hectares immediately northeast of the government-run museum in Taichung’s North District (北區), the garden features more than 700 plant species, many of which are labeled in Chinese but not in English. Since its establishment in 1999, the site’s managers have done their best to replicate a number of native ecosystems, dividing the site into eight areas. The name of the Coral Atoll Zone might
RSS