Smartphone, Dumb Brain – The Rise Of Brain Rot

My brain is broken.

I realized this a few months back.
In trying to be informed on a myriad of issues I didn’t fully understand, I spent way too much time doomscrolling.
I figured my background in journalism mixed with my ability to surf the center of most issues would protect me (along with decades of digital communications).

It didn’t.

And, I think it broke my brain.
When did our phones stop being a tool… and start becoming an appendage?
We don’t scroll anymore. 
We immerse ourselves in it. 
And by “it,” I mean the endless, frictionless sea of smartphone content.
What used to be a call or a text or a clip is now full-day immersion.
And this isn’t just a digital habit. 

It’s showing up in our brain scans. Literally.

MRI imagery from a 2021 Korean study (shared in this CBS News segment) reveals what smartphone addiction does to our heads. 
The brains of addicted users lit up like Times Square – not because they’re smarter, but because their brains are working harder to do simpler tasks. 
Translation? 
We’re becoming less attentive. 
More distracted. 
Harder to focus. 

And we call it, with the kind of blunt honesty that only Gen Z could love: brain rot.

This isn’t a small problem. 
It’s a rewiring of how we live. 
Work. 
Think.
And it turns out, according to this study, that “smartphones have wide-reaching changes all over the brain.”

So what are we supposed to do?

The phone is your calendar, your banking, your family chat, your everything. 
But there are antidotes… analog ones.
Drawing.
Playing an instrument (try electric bass!).
A Kindle instead of Instagram.
It turns out that creative or physical non-digital outlets actually rewire the brain. 
Less digital dopamine loop, more real-life feedback.

Here are the other things I would recommend:

1. Turn off all notifications (your brain doesn’t need to hear every ding).
2. Don’t just look at your screen time, set limits on apps and create a strict downtime (if that fails, program your home Internet to shut down at a specific time).
3. Remove social media apps or, at least, the logins (friction is your friend – make it harder to get to).
4. Grayscale your screen (Instagram is way less fun without the colors).
5. Schedule hobbies, not just meetings (read a chapter of a book every morning before checking your email).
6. Get an accountability partner (someone who sees you reaching and says, “put it down”).

Smartphone addiction isn’t a medically recognized condition… yet. 

But the link between excessive screen time and cognitive decline, depression, and anxiety? 
It’s showing up everywhere. 
Just ask the MRI.
It’s not that we don’t know we’re addicted. 
It’s that the addiction is now so culturally normalized that doing anything but scrolling feels weird.

But here’s the bigger question:

If the phone has become your oxygen, what happens when it starts choking you?
You can roll your eyes at terms like “brain rot,” but you can’t scroll past the truth. 
We check our phones mid-conversation, mid-movie… mid-thought.

The next great mental health crisis isn’t coming. 

It’s already here.
And it’s charging overnight on your nightstand.

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM. Listen in right here.

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