The grave, underlying problem is that brain rot, by definition, serves the interests of authoritarians and dictators. They do not want populations that look beyond memes and sound bites in order to question their lies.
How then do we solve this huge issue here, when our mainstream media have, by and large, abdicated their foundational responsibility to pursue truth?
Steve, What will happen when the brainless president-elect gives the go ahead to McMahon to abolish the Department of Education as proposed in Project 2025’s playbook? It’s going to be awfully difficult to make inroads into red school boards to enhance curricula to teach critical thinking, history and dare I say civics, all 3 seem to be lacking, thanks in great measure to the last 40 years of dumbing down education in GOP led States.
The Dept of Ed is not allowed to have any authority over curriculum. That is why it is lacking or corrupted in so many places. They provide the advice, research & best practice, teacher preparation. Following it is voluntary. Few people know what it does. I should add, defend students’ civil rights & access education. Perfect for making it a bogeyman.
State legislatures have decided to micromanage education & taken over responsibilities usually left to state Dept of Eds and local districts which used to appreciate the dept of ed as a resource hub. https://www.ed.gov/about/ed-offices/ed-staff-organization
Sounds bad that we don’t have a true national education system. On the other hand, do we want the Orange Menace controlling curriculum?
Curriculum is controlled by the states and local school districts. To create the department language in Public Law 96-88 acknowledgements things such as parents have primary responsibility, states, localities and private institutions have primary responsibility to support that parental role.
On page 4 of the pdf is the Federal-State Relationships section. In (a) it says creating the dept does not increase federal authority over education. In (b) it specifically states the Secretary of Education cannot exercise any directions, supervision or control over curriculum and all lists with everything from personnel to library resources.
Thank you for your response. Alas, IMO devolving education solely to individual States will further erode critical thinking skills, and will do little to improve the reading skills of a good chunk of your population.
It was an acknowledgment necessary to pass it. Nothing new. States have always held those rights. To some degree exceptions exist if they conflict Constitutional rights Civil Rights like discrimination, freedom of speech. States abusing their authority over education is an old problem.
The latest round happens as many states try to address literacy issues. Mississippi was a notable first to show success after being the worst. Maybe fear that too much reading = too much knowledge so offset it with book bans & alter curriculum? 🤷♀️
Ron DeSantis weaponized education - K-12 and post-secondary - for politics. K-12 curriculum must include “evils of communism” with a focus on Hispanic/Latino fears. He carefully cultivates fear of Dems commie after it put him the Gov mansions. Some state are little test labs for other states to copy. ‘Commie-La’ memes flooded Latino soclal media before the election.
My first job as a teen was as a teaching assistant in a summer reading program. In college, tutored Vietnam vets ($1/hour) and much later taught & tutored secondary ed & disadvantaged adults in college. Went on to other things but literacy & social studies are close to my heart.
Make America Great A gain, Drain the swamp, Witch hunt, The election was rigged, My IQ is one of the highest -and you all know it, The enemy from within, Suckers and losers-over & over & over again , day after day reiterated on TV news. To hear this hog wash would cause anyone to mentally deteriorate.
Look up brain rot in the dictionary, there is a picture of trump !
I see "brain rot" as one's unwillingness to question. To ask. To reflect. For example: Donald Trump told a rally crowd last July, "I don't care about you. I just want your vote." The people CHEERED. Brain rot also occurs through texting conversations on one's cell phone. I mean, why SPEAK to the person right next to you when you can send a text? Brain rot occurs when truth is taken for granted where in fact it is a lie. We have grown a generation or two of illiterates. Laziness creates brain rot. It is so much easier to believe what you want to believe, truth or lie. We are in a societal quagmire. When the absurd becomes the reality, we are in full brain rot.
It’s totally true. I spent Thanksgiving with the future in laws of my daughter, and her future brother in law is raising their two young daughters with no internet access. You have no idea how brilliant, creative, curious, and happy those two young girls already are.
"Brain-rot", indeed. I am 72. My precious daughter is 29. In my late teens and 20's I was extremely active politically (anti-VN war, civil rights). I continue to be stunned and saddened by her -- and all of her peers' that I know -- disinterest in politics in any shape or form. (Including protests. Mama's going to the Women's March -- again, sigh... this time with her walker.) My daughter says that she's "not interested". Like what seems to be the majority of her peers, she's glued to social media. I can only control my own actions, ultimately.
Something that strikes me about the causes of brain rot is that the communication (such as it is) is almost entirely one-way. The newspaper or the TV show speaks to you, but you can't speak back -- not, at least, in a way they can hear and respond to. Hundreds and thousands of people respond to YouTube videos, and you can respond to a comment, but you can't get a discussion going with the commenter. Comments sections on many media outlets get shut down because they're overrun by trolls and bots.
Real conversations can be exciting -- and risky! We may hear facts and perspectives that we never heard before and maybe aren't prepared to deal with. Maybe we have to fight the temptation to say "That's total crap," but we do fight it because we value the interaction with this other person or other people. In one-way communication we just say "That's total crap" and leave it at that. Huh! You guys have got me thinking. This is good!
I was reminded when you suggested we delve into things more deeply that the average adult attention span can’t afford to shrink much more. When I was finishing my masters my paper was on gender differences in communication. A main difference was not the attention span but that when women found something that interested them they would “delve.” Men were not as inclined to do so. In a workplace they would handoff digging for the details to female employees.
It’s been a dozen years since then. Things change. How much is hard to say but we do know the adult attention span shrank to 8.25 seconds. Texting, the tweet machine, scrolling and so on encourage it. Dash for flash (and cash). Headlines for clicks. A lot of people only skim the headlines. It’s in the workplace branding & buzzwords. Skip the details.
Worst case scenario, brain rot matters. My employer’s huge website was migrating to a new platform. The instructions changed frequently as we prepared. The “manager” of this project for our department had never managed a webpage or site. She came back from a meeting and said, “Just do it. They said 60% is good enough.” 60% of what?
Very beautiful piece. The quotes are heartwarming. It seems like we’re the United States of amnesia, and without getting back to reading full books, I don’t know if we’ll remember how. It’s a tragedy out of collective trauma that we’ve forgotten how to be critical thinkers. It’s heartbreaking to witness.
Way too late to do anything about the Stupidity Pandemic ravaging most societies. The "Stupid" are now in charge of all three branches of the U.S. gov't and there is no way to stop them. Biden could institute the Insurrection Act and arrest Trump and his crime ring, and cede the Presidency to Harris before Jan 20th. Of course, that would bring on a fast moving Civil War instead of the slow rolling one of a Trump Admin. The last hope is the mid-terms where the "Stupid" get replaced, but a nuclear exchange, facilitated by our Traitor-in-Chief (EU-NATO/Russia, or Israel/Iran with Russian retaliatory strikes on Israel), will likely preempt taking back Congress from the "Stupid". Sorry, but a slight majority of the American Electorate were really Stupid enough to put a Treasonous Criminal back in charge. Trump committed Treason in trying to sell out Ukraine to Putin and in secretly selling out the Afghan gov't to the Taliban (and freeing 5000 Taliban warriors and commanders) which resulted in the loss of American soldier's lives. Too late to do anything about that. Now he can finish the destruction of America with the blessings of the MAGA Supreme Court. The "Stupid" don't know what's coming, OR, they will get what they've been literally praying for: Armageddon and the destruction of all us "heathens" that don't worship the "God" of Moses and their "Savior" Trump (not a Christian among them, but we still refer to them as Christian Nationalists). The Smart among us have routinely underestimated the number of Stupid people in our Society, to all of our detriment.
1) I loved Walden and didn’t recall the brain rot/potato rot comparison. But wow is it apt. I need to read Walden again.
2) Rachel Maddow also did an excellent interview with Jane Mayer about her article on Hegseth - they got in great depth with the story and Jane added that after it was published in the New Yorker, her phone was ringing off the hook with people both corroborating and adding other items to the story. Maddow also reported about a very important way that politics infested a relationship between father and son with a D Senator from Montana whose seminary student son was picked up during the lavender haze/park stings happening to catch homosexual ‘deviant’ behavior in the early 1950s. She teaches me something every time I see her show. Then she interviewed JANE Mayer on her reporting. BOTH agreeing that this is why good journalism is going to be so important in this time. Though shouldn’t be a replacement for an honest FBI.
I keep coming back to an age old phrase, “ The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”. Somewhere along the line there’s been a lot less cradle rocking going on and more electronic babysitting happening maybe?
Which immediately reminds me of the title of Rita Mae Brown's first poetry chapbook: "The Hand That Cradles the Rock." You can probably guess when I came of political age and/or who I was hanging out with!
Another aspect of brain rot that social media is encouraging is the lack of ability to concentrate on anything longer than a Tik Tok video or meme--or even a Bluesky post. My grandchildren, bright, AP level students, do not read books unless they are assigned. They are missing out on so much--the empathy that arises from good fiction (even genre fiction) and the detailed analyses in good non fiction that impresses on one when a writer is using evidence well and making a consistent argument. It is a sad loss in a family till now of avid readers. And leaves me puzzled about Christmas gifts 😖
I would like to reiterate the fact that we are living through another Pandemic, the Stupidity Pandemic. This is not a new pandemic. It was clearly seen in the 1930's where self described "good Christians" worshiped Hitler. We have the same "good Christians" worshiping Trump. Nothing new at all, but again, the "astute" in our societies always underestimate the number of stupid among us per the 2024 election in the U.S. We aren't the only country involved. It is truly a Pandemic. It is real, tragic and inescapable and has been repeated throughout history. I guess it takes Global War to get out of these Pandemics. Unfortunately, this next World War may erase any aspects of it returning. Biden/Harris could stop the global catastrophe with a Civil War facilitated by arresting the Insurrectionists and their leader before Jan 20, but they don't have the guts to do that. So, I think we are all f'ed. Sorry. I would love to hear anyone that thinks they have a solution to head off the coming disaster, but like the Stupidity Pandemic, I don't think there are any cures on the horizon. If you think QAnon was bad, wait until AI takes over and really "educates" our really Stupid populations! A good education used to be the best vaccine against Stupidity ruling. That too is gone. https://youtu.be/Vl6QMARq_zQ
The grave, underlying problem is that brain rot, by definition, serves the interests of authoritarians and dictators. They do not want populations that look beyond memes and sound bites in order to question their lies.
How then do we solve this huge issue here, when our mainstream media have, by and large, abdicated their foundational responsibility to pursue truth?
Education. Media literacy. Critical thinking. Sounds like resistance at the moment.
Exactly, Steven. We have our work cut out for us.
Steve, What will happen when the brainless president-elect gives the go ahead to McMahon to abolish the Department of Education as proposed in Project 2025’s playbook? It’s going to be awfully difficult to make inroads into red school boards to enhance curricula to teach critical thinking, history and dare I say civics, all 3 seem to be lacking, thanks in great measure to the last 40 years of dumbing down education in GOP led States.
The Dept of Ed is not allowed to have any authority over curriculum. That is why it is lacking or corrupted in so many places. They provide the advice, research & best practice, teacher preparation. Following it is voluntary. Few people know what it does. I should add, defend students’ civil rights & access education. Perfect for making it a bogeyman.
State legislatures have decided to micromanage education & taken over responsibilities usually left to state Dept of Eds and local districts which used to appreciate the dept of ed as a resource hub. https://www.ed.gov/about/ed-offices/ed-staff-organization
Sounds bad that we don’t have a true national education system. On the other hand, do we want the Orange Menace controlling curriculum?
Curriculum is controlled by the states and local school districts. To create the department language in Public Law 96-88 acknowledgements things such as parents have primary responsibility, states, localities and private institutions have primary responsibility to support that parental role.
On page 4 of the pdf is the Federal-State Relationships section. In (a) it says creating the dept does not increase federal authority over education. In (b) it specifically states the Secretary of Education cannot exercise any directions, supervision or control over curriculum and all lists with everything from personnel to library resources.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-726/pdf/COMPS-726.pdf
Thank you for your response. Alas, IMO devolving education solely to individual States will further erode critical thinking skills, and will do little to improve the reading skills of a good chunk of your population.
It was an acknowledgment necessary to pass it. Nothing new. States have always held those rights. To some degree exceptions exist if they conflict Constitutional rights Civil Rights like discrimination, freedom of speech. States abusing their authority over education is an old problem.
The latest round happens as many states try to address literacy issues. Mississippi was a notable first to show success after being the worst. Maybe fear that too much reading = too much knowledge so offset it with book bans & alter curriculum? 🤷♀️
Ron DeSantis weaponized education - K-12 and post-secondary - for politics. K-12 curriculum must include “evils of communism” with a focus on Hispanic/Latino fears. He carefully cultivates fear of Dems commie after it put him the Gov mansions. Some state are little test labs for other states to copy. ‘Commie-La’ memes flooded Latino soclal media before the election.
My first job as a teen was as a teaching assistant in a summer reading program. In college, tutored Vietnam vets ($1/hour) and much later taught & tutored secondary ed & disadvantaged adults in college. Went on to other things but literacy & social studies are close to my heart.
We will.... WHAT are we going to do differently???
In a way that....HOW are we going to do this???
So that people are educated and informed.
Make America Great A gain, Drain the swamp, Witch hunt, The election was rigged, My IQ is one of the highest -and you all know it, The enemy from within, Suckers and losers-over & over & over again , day after day reiterated on TV news. To hear this hog wash would cause anyone to mentally deteriorate.
Look up brain rot in the dictionary, there is a picture of trump !
I see "brain rot" as one's unwillingness to question. To ask. To reflect. For example: Donald Trump told a rally crowd last July, "I don't care about you. I just want your vote." The people CHEERED. Brain rot also occurs through texting conversations on one's cell phone. I mean, why SPEAK to the person right next to you when you can send a text? Brain rot occurs when truth is taken for granted where in fact it is a lie. We have grown a generation or two of illiterates. Laziness creates brain rot. It is so much easier to believe what you want to believe, truth or lie. We are in a societal quagmire. When the absurd becomes the reality, we are in full brain rot.
True. The technology serves the authoritarian interests.
PLUS, they can TRACK us. And, "they" can profile us.
He’s their fave insult comedian.
Maybe 10 yrs ago there was a study I found alarming. Young folks preferred using devices to socialize. Face to face was too much trouble.
It’s totally true. I spent Thanksgiving with the future in laws of my daughter, and her future brother in law is raising their two young daughters with no internet access. You have no idea how brilliant, creative, curious, and happy those two young girls already are.
Totally the truth.
Impressive. How old are they? They agenda will get harder.
"Brain-rot", indeed. I am 72. My precious daughter is 29. In my late teens and 20's I was extremely active politically (anti-VN war, civil rights). I continue to be stunned and saddened by her -- and all of her peers' that I know -- disinterest in politics in any shape or form. (Including protests. Mama's going to the Women's March -- again, sigh... this time with her walker.) My daughter says that she's "not interested". Like what seems to be the majority of her peers, she's glued to social media. I can only control my own actions, ultimately.
Something that strikes me about the causes of brain rot is that the communication (such as it is) is almost entirely one-way. The newspaper or the TV show speaks to you, but you can't speak back -- not, at least, in a way they can hear and respond to. Hundreds and thousands of people respond to YouTube videos, and you can respond to a comment, but you can't get a discussion going with the commenter. Comments sections on many media outlets get shut down because they're overrun by trolls and bots.
Real conversations can be exciting -- and risky! We may hear facts and perspectives that we never heard before and maybe aren't prepared to deal with. Maybe we have to fight the temptation to say "That's total crap," but we do fight it because we value the interaction with this other person or other people. In one-way communication we just say "That's total crap" and leave it at that. Huh! You guys have got me thinking. This is good!
Excellent point!
I was reminded when you suggested we delve into things more deeply that the average adult attention span can’t afford to shrink much more. When I was finishing my masters my paper was on gender differences in communication. A main difference was not the attention span but that when women found something that interested them they would “delve.” Men were not as inclined to do so. In a workplace they would handoff digging for the details to female employees.
It’s been a dozen years since then. Things change. How much is hard to say but we do know the adult attention span shrank to 8.25 seconds. Texting, the tweet machine, scrolling and so on encourage it. Dash for flash (and cash). Headlines for clicks. A lot of people only skim the headlines. It’s in the workplace branding & buzzwords. Skip the details.
Worst case scenario, brain rot matters. My employer’s huge website was migrating to a new platform. The instructions changed frequently as we prepared. The “manager” of this project for our department had never managed a webpage or site. She came back from a meeting and said, “Just do it. They said 60% is good enough.” 60% of what?
https://www.sambarecovery.com/rehab-blog/average-human-attention-span-statistics
Very beautiful piece. The quotes are heartwarming. It seems like we’re the United States of amnesia, and without getting back to reading full books, I don’t know if we’ll remember how. It’s a tragedy out of collective trauma that we’ve forgotten how to be critical thinkers. It’s heartbreaking to witness.
Way too late to do anything about the Stupidity Pandemic ravaging most societies. The "Stupid" are now in charge of all three branches of the U.S. gov't and there is no way to stop them. Biden could institute the Insurrection Act and arrest Trump and his crime ring, and cede the Presidency to Harris before Jan 20th. Of course, that would bring on a fast moving Civil War instead of the slow rolling one of a Trump Admin. The last hope is the mid-terms where the "Stupid" get replaced, but a nuclear exchange, facilitated by our Traitor-in-Chief (EU-NATO/Russia, or Israel/Iran with Russian retaliatory strikes on Israel), will likely preempt taking back Congress from the "Stupid". Sorry, but a slight majority of the American Electorate were really Stupid enough to put a Treasonous Criminal back in charge. Trump committed Treason in trying to sell out Ukraine to Putin and in secretly selling out the Afghan gov't to the Taliban (and freeing 5000 Taliban warriors and commanders) which resulted in the loss of American soldier's lives. Too late to do anything about that. Now he can finish the destruction of America with the blessings of the MAGA Supreme Court. The "Stupid" don't know what's coming, OR, they will get what they've been literally praying for: Armageddon and the destruction of all us "heathens" that don't worship the "God" of Moses and their "Savior" Trump (not a Christian among them, but we still refer to them as Christian Nationalists). The Smart among us have routinely underestimated the number of Stupid people in our Society, to all of our detriment.
1) I loved Walden and didn’t recall the brain rot/potato rot comparison. But wow is it apt. I need to read Walden again.
2) Rachel Maddow also did an excellent interview with Jane Mayer about her article on Hegseth - they got in great depth with the story and Jane added that after it was published in the New Yorker, her phone was ringing off the hook with people both corroborating and adding other items to the story. Maddow also reported about a very important way that politics infested a relationship between father and son with a D Senator from Montana whose seminary student son was picked up during the lavender haze/park stings happening to catch homosexual ‘deviant’ behavior in the early 1950s. She teaches me something every time I see her show. Then she interviewed JANE Mayer on her reporting. BOTH agreeing that this is why good journalism is going to be so important in this time. Though shouldn’t be a replacement for an honest FBI.
I keep coming back to an age old phrase, “ The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world”. Somewhere along the line there’s been a lot less cradle rocking going on and more electronic babysitting happening maybe?
Which immediately reminds me of the title of Rita Mae Brown's first poetry chapbook: "The Hand That Cradles the Rock." You can probably guess when I came of political age and/or who I was hanging out with!
Another aspect of brain rot that social media is encouraging is the lack of ability to concentrate on anything longer than a Tik Tok video or meme--or even a Bluesky post. My grandchildren, bright, AP level students, do not read books unless they are assigned. They are missing out on so much--the empathy that arises from good fiction (even genre fiction) and the detailed analyses in good non fiction that impresses on one when a writer is using evidence well and making a consistent argument. It is a sad loss in a family till now of avid readers. And leaves me puzzled about Christmas gifts 😖
Talking books maybe?
nope. Nor Kindle. It’s a matter of concentration, not the form of things with paper pages
I see. I was thinking headphones would let them move about if being still that long was an issue.
Nailed it!
Brain rot? Hmm, doesn’t that require the ability to think?
The Roots of The Stupidity Pandemic
https://youtu.be/Vl6QMARq_zQ
Wow. Thank you so much for introducing me to a new way of looking at what's going on in our nation.
I would like to reiterate the fact that we are living through another Pandemic, the Stupidity Pandemic. This is not a new pandemic. It was clearly seen in the 1930's where self described "good Christians" worshiped Hitler. We have the same "good Christians" worshiping Trump. Nothing new at all, but again, the "astute" in our societies always underestimate the number of stupid among us per the 2024 election in the U.S. We aren't the only country involved. It is truly a Pandemic. It is real, tragic and inescapable and has been repeated throughout history. I guess it takes Global War to get out of these Pandemics. Unfortunately, this next World War may erase any aspects of it returning. Biden/Harris could stop the global catastrophe with a Civil War facilitated by arresting the Insurrectionists and their leader before Jan 20, but they don't have the guts to do that. So, I think we are all f'ed. Sorry. I would love to hear anyone that thinks they have a solution to head off the coming disaster, but like the Stupidity Pandemic, I don't think there are any cures on the horizon. If you think QAnon was bad, wait until AI takes over and really "educates" our really Stupid populations! A good education used to be the best vaccine against Stupidity ruling. That too is gone. https://youtu.be/Vl6QMARq_zQ