Emilie Owens in Psyche:
It is midday on a Friday, and I am in a room with about a dozen teenagers at an international school in Oslo, Norway. We are talking about how and why they use TikTok, the digital video-sharing application. The prevailing mood is laid-back: though I am technically a media researcher, and they are technically my research participants, this group of 16- and 17-year-olds are joking around with each other and with me as we chat about the role of TikTok in their everyday lives. It’s a beautiful day – warm and summery – and everyone, including me, is in a fun weekend mood.
‘I dunno, it’s kind of hard to describe what I see on my For You page,’ says one of my participants.
‘Yeah, it’s like…’ another of them pauses, looking for the right word. ‘It’s just mostly brain rot, you know?’
I do not know. This is my first introduction to the term ‘brain rot’. Perplexed, I ask them what it means.
More here.
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