As a nice, smooth chaser to the rocky ride of 2025, researchers confirmed a couple of months back that the science says yes, brainrot is real, and the studies that have been done on the psychological effects of short-form video consumption confirm that it makes us dumber and more miserable. It probably shouldn’t take official studies to confirm to us that doomscrolling is a bad thing, but it does confront us with the uncomfortable reality of the negative aspects of leading our lives through a handful of apps on our phones. Yay!

The obvious conclusion of these findings is that we should find a way to spend less time consuming this type of content, but that is far easier said than done in this unavoidably plugged-in world. The call of the scroll when you are lying in bed, waiting for something, or just any time you feel slightly bored, is far too tempting. 

Perhaps a good middle ground is to cut out the video part and simply look at some pictures that show the highlight reel of all these silly, entertaining tidbits instead. The amusement is still there to be had, but you can tell yourself it isn’t as corrosive as the real deal.