Yasmin Rufo
BBC News
Are you spending hours scrolling mindlessly on Instagram reels and TikTok? If so, you might be suffering from brain rot, which has become the Oxford word of the year.
It is a term that captures concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The word’s usage saw an increase of 230% in its frequency from 2023 to 2024.
Psychologist and Oxford University Professor, Andrew Przybylski says the popularity of the word is a “symptom of the time we’re living in”.
Brain rot beat five other shortlisted words including demure, Romantasy and dynamic pricing.
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