Online brain rot is reducing peoples’ storytelling abilities

Canadian researcher Masoud Kianpour warns that online brain rot is undermining peoples’ storytelling skills. 

The Toronto Metropolitan University Senior Research Fellow observed that more folks spend time with mundane online content.

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This behavior leaves little room for one to be still and stimulate their imagination.

Consequently, more people have lost the ability to tell meaningful stories. 

Brain rot and the decline of human storytelling

The Oxford University Press defines “brain rot” as the “deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”

It also refers to content that can cause this deterioration, such as overstimulating TikTok clips.

Nowadays, online influencers usually post videos of dancing women, clips flexing their expensive possessions, and men offering toxic masculine advice.

These types of content attract millions of views, so many people post similar content.

Eventually, the public learned to share stories only as a means of gaining more likes and views.

For example, most people take photos for their Instagram stories before eating.

Most only post the highlights of their lives, forming a story that lacks humanity. Berlin’s University of the Arts Professor Byung-Chul Han argues that the “best stories are rich in complexity, openness, self-doubt, conflicting arguments, hope and human warmth.” 

However, the stories people share online are typically highly curated, giving only the highlights that satisfy the social media algorithms. 

People slowly lose the humanity within great storytelling as they become more interested in painting pictures of their lives as interesting.

As a result, Han says, “We were storytellers; we have become storysellers.” 

Brain rot has also been degrading peoples’ memories, which is another essential storytelling skill.

The Conversation says TMU researchers asked students to watch a two-minute video to test their recall. 

Students couldn’t follow the footage as they felt it was too long.

As a result, the researchers had to divide the video into 16-second clips.

Since the dawn of time, humans have drawn inspiration from their ancestors to create new stories.

However, Kianpour warns this trend may cause widespread cultural memory loss.

Consequently, younger generations may struggle further to form new stories, which are important for their mental development.