“Brain rot” as 2024’s word of the year is just the tip of the iceberg.
There are countless reports of people struggling to focus, read longer or more complex texts, or even sit through movies. In Brazil, we’re reading less—recent research shows that the proportion of readers last year was the lowest since 2007, when the survey began. In classrooms, these concerns are echoed with even greater frequency.
As it becomes increasingly difficult to capture and retain attention, we are resorting to ever more desperate measures to achieve it—whether through an escalating intensity of simultaneous stimuli (the origin of the term brain rot in the digital context), triggering strong emotions, or appealing to our basest instincts. Clickbait, ragebait, and the ever-classic overblown promises of empowerment and wealth dominate, to the point that even the most analog purveyors of such promises are feeling the heat.
On the other hand, the quest for algorithmic success has grown so pervasive that it is speculated to be a significant factor in a widespread aesthetic and creative homogenization across interior design, retail, and music (which is becoming more formulaic, repetitive, and increasingly relegated to ambient soundtracks). From blanding to even physical appearances, some are painting this as a creativity crisis.
Unlike past moral panics surrounding video games, disco music, or heavy metal—comparisons often made by those dismissing concerns about the collective harm caused by social media—there is a growing body of evidence linking today’s environment to worsening mental health, misinformation, focus, learning ability, and other severe issues.
It’s not just children and young people suffering. The BBC recently discussed how problematic screen and media usage is also affecting older adults, intersecting with issues like loneliness and ageism.
The attention economy—a hallmark of our times—is showing clear signs of the human toll it exacts.
The expectation that improvements and adjustments will occur voluntarily is, at best, naive. The intentional degradation of platforms to serve their own interests—often contrary to user preferences and encapsulated in the concept of ensh*ttification (our most-read article last year)—is simply the status quo today.
In the midst of all this, what was Meta’s latest “brilliant” idea? Developing a tool for creating “virtual users”—people who don’t actually exist but populate the company’s platforms and post autonomously. When this tool was reported on in a recent Financial Times article, the profiles went viral (predictably sparking concerns about spam and impersonation), and public backlash was so severe that they pulled the experiments almost immediately.
It’s not just societal transformation scholars who are casting a critical eye on what’s happening. A few signs:
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
Parts of the communication and marketing industries remain in denial, partially by emphasizing the positive aspects of social media (which undoubtedly exist and are significant!) as though they somehow negate or erase the negatives.
There are still many clinging to clichéd deflections.
The tired line, “It’s not about technology; it’s about people,” doesn’t hold up. For comparison, any physical product causing problems for its consumers—even a small segment—ends up altered or withdrawn from the market. Remember the IKEA dressers? Keeping people scrolling as long as possible is a well-known key metric for platforms that benefits only them.
Holding individuals solely responsible for their use has its limits, especially when not everyone has the same maturity or judgment, and when problematic relationships with platforms are demonstrably possible.
It's a given that media won't keep growing indefinitely. Looking at not only global growth data but also penetration rates, it's clear that the bulk of this growth is being driven by developing countries. Numbers are already quite high in developed nations, and we might be nearing the ceiling, assuming that anyone who wants to use these platforms is probably already using them—this doesn’t seem to be an issue of financial or technical access.
Even the much-praised creator economy will hit a ceiling eventually. We’ve previously discussed how transformative it has been for today’s youth to have lucrative and glamorous career paths that are far more accessible than sports or professional music, aspirational fields for past generations.
The issue is that access to these opportunities, contrary to what the cheerleaders of this economy proclaim, is a zero-sum game: if everyone wants to become a creator (and in Brazil and the US, a lot of people do), there won’t be enough audience or money to sustain viable careers for everyone chasing this path. What happens to gold rush towns when the veins run dry? Could the sheer number of shovel sellers (in this case, those teaching how to produce content/engage/etc.) already be a clue?
Are we heading toward a situation comparable to day trading, where it’s well known that most individuals lose money or make very little, yet the belief in being above average (hello, Dunning-Kruger!) and the allure of “easy money” continues to draw more and more people in?
In physical markets, it’s easier to spot saturation as it happens. In digital spaces, it’s trickier, but some subtle signs are emerging:
A countercurrent is consolidating. Various initiatives are emerging in favor of more offline time, a rediscovery or reimagining of analog approaches, encouraging people to be more present in the moment and less focused on documenting it, and even explicitly anti-social media movements rejecting the dynamics these platforms foster. Examples include:
If today’s dominant culture is digital and heavily shaped by social media, could we be witnessing the birth of a counterculture rooted in opposing values?
The movement to protect children and teenagers by restricting social media usage is surprisingly bipartisan, even in these polarized times. Issues such as individual identification, age verification, and criminal accountability are also under discussion. Many regions worldwide have already reached critical legislative mass. The ripple effects of regulations in one country influencing others are clear—GDPR's influence on Brazil's LGPD is a prime example.
Public opinion on platforms is growing increasingly critical, according to various studies, even as most people acknowledge their benefits. With a broad awareness of the negatives, we can anticipate a shift toward more intentional, pragmatic, and moderated usage.
When reevaluating our relationship with anything we recognize as both pleasurable and harmful (e.g., sweets, alcohol, caffeine, or psychoactives), common strategies emerge. Similar approaches could reshape social media consumption:
Especially after Zuck’s latest announcement, both the level of uncertainty and the risks to brand safety are alarmingly high. Betting on the status quo, amid rapid transformations and a deteriorating context, seems like a poor strategy.
It’s time to balance the pursuit of attention at all costs with greater care for how that attention is rewarded. These challenges also offer an opportunity: to build a healthier digital landscape for everyone. Let’s seize it.
