'Brain rot': is TikTok causing brain abnormalities?

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...

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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”.

Intriguingly, researchers found that those who felt the most attached to short videos had noticeable differences in their brain structure. These participants had more grey matter in their orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a region near the front of the brain involved in decision-making and emotional regulation. Similarly, they had more grey matter in their cerebellum, the small, cauliflower-shaped part at the back of the brain that plays a role in movement and emotions.

The conclusion: this was indeed bad news for lovers of TikTok, Instagram Reels et al. Having an oversized OFC could be a sign of what the researchers described as “heightened sensitivity to the rewards and stimuli associated with short-video content”. They speculated that spending hours scrolling through videos might have led to this neural bloating.