Latest news with #brainrot
CBC
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
WATCH — The brain rot words you never want to hear your parents say
We asked kids like you to share their thoughts Have you seen the TikTok videos where kids make their parents try to read brain rot words? Here's the big catch: You can't laugh at how your parents try to pronounce the words. Nope, not even a little bit. Why? Well, you have water in your mouth. As you can probably imagine it's produced some hilarious responses — and a lot of water sprayed everywhere! In response to the trend, CBC Kids News took to the streets of Halifax, Nova Scotia. We asked kids and teens like you which brain rot words they'd never want to hear their parents say. The results might surprise you. Click play to hear the list of banned words from kids. ⬇️⬇️⬇️ Want to hear from more Canadian kids? Or maybe learn more about brain rot? Check out these videos and articles from CBC Kids News: What do you know about slang? WATCH — 3 'skibidi' origin stories you may not know about WATCH — Why you might want to translate Italian brain rot before repeating it Have more questions? Want to tell us how we're doing? Use the 'send us feedback' link below. ⬇️⬇️⬇️
CBC
2 days ago
- General
- CBC
Kids tell us which brain rot words parents should never say
Does hearing your mom say 'skibidi' make you cringe? We asked kids in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which brain rot terms they never want to hear their parents say.
Forbes
4 days ago
- Health
- Forbes
2 Ways ‘Short-Video Addiction' Changes Your Brain, By A Psychologist
Your endless scroll may be costing you more than just your time. New research shows it's changing ... More the way you think and make decisions. These days, almost everything is available in the form of quick and bite-sized content — from recipes and skincare tips to news updates. You may find yourself swiping through reels, tapping through stories or scrolling endless feeds, often without even realizing where your time really went. This is true for so many of us, because this is how content is designed now: fast and impossible to look away from. In fact, you've likely noticed how content has only gotten shorter, snappier and more addictive. Suddenly, almost every industry is trying to capitalize on this growing addiction to quick content. Now, it's all about grabbing your attention within the first three seconds or losing it entirely. You can even find content on 'hook' templates or trend cycles that rise and fall in a matter of days. In 2024, 'brain rot' was named the Word of the Year by Oxford University Press. This term was popularized by Gen Z to describe the mental fog and cognitive decline linked to endless scrolling. Experts have now warned that this habit, which we often dismiss as 'just watching videos,' is actually changing how our brains work. They are dulling our focus, weakening memory and even disrupting decision-making. This is backed by new research published in NeuroImage. Researchers conducted a study that examined the psychological and neurological effects of short-video addiction. They used a combination of behavioral analysis, brain imaging and computational models of decision-making. The study looked at how excessive engagement with short videos might influence the way our brains process rewards, risks and choices. Based on this research, here are two ways short-video addiction changes your brain. 1. It Reduces Your Sensitivity To Real Consequences One way being addicted to short video consumption impacts you is by hurting your 'loss aversion.' This is the tendency to feel the pain of losing something more strongly than the pleasure of gaining something of equal value. In decision-making, this comparison acts like a protective filter that helps you avoid risks. It makes you think twice before making choices that could lead to negative outcomes. However, in case the sensitivity to loss is reduced, you're more likely to make impulsive or risky decisions without fully considering the consequences. In the NeuroImage study, researchers found that individuals with higher short-video addiction (SVA) symptoms were more likely to experience lower loss aversion. Put simply, the more addicted someone was to short videos, the less sensitive they were to potential losses. This impacted their decision-making, which became more reward-driven, even when risks were high. Brain scans from the study revealed that people with higher short-video addiction had lower activity in a part of the brain called the 'precuneus' when thinking about potential gains. The precuneus helps you reflect and consider outcomes by thinking things through. The brain may not fully process what's at stake when the precuneus is less active. This holds true especially when something is exciting to gain. This, in turn, makes it easier to overlook the risks. Essentially, if loss stops feeling like a big deal, your decision-making becomes skewed. So, the next time you're deep into a scroll, ask yourself: Are you really willing to train your brain to chase rewards at the cost of good judgment? 2. It Slows Down How You Process Information Another commonly experienced consequence of doomscrolling or short video addiction is a growing sense of mental fog, difficulty focusing or struggling to make even small decisions without overthinking. Researchers of NeuroImage study the found that short-video addiction can quite literally slow down how your brain processes information. The researchers used a cognitive model called the Drift Diffusion Model (DDM) to measure participants' 'drift rate,' which refers to the speed at which your brain gathers and processes evidence before making a decision. A higher drift rate causes you to make faster and more confident choices. A lower drift rate, on the other hand, causes you to have slower thinking and use more mental effort to arrive at even simple conclusions. The researchers found that individuals with higher short-video addiction symptoms had a significantly lower drift rate, meaning their brains accumulated evidence more slowly and made decision-making harder and less efficient. This was once again reflected in the activity observed in the precuneus, as it's also involved in mental focus, reflection and evaluation of options. The brain processes information slower when this area is less active. Even simple choices can feel more mentally draining. If you've been feeling mentally foggy, overwhelmed by everyday decisions or find it hard to focus for more than a few minutes, remember that it might not just be a lack of willpower. It could be your brain adapting to the speed of the content you consume. This might be your sign to give your mind the space it needs to exist without constant stimulation. Reclaiming The Beauty Of Doing Nothing In chasing constant engagement, you may not realize that sometimes being bored is not all that bad. In fact, 'meaningless time' is actually beneficial and sometimes even necessary. When you're bored, your mind finally has the chance to wander and to explore ideas that don't surface in the usual flood of distractions. This can help boost creativity, improve problem-solving and support deeper thinking. In quiet and unfilled spaces, you get to hear yourself the loudest. While you don't have to stop watching content altogether, you can learn how to intentionally engage with it. Consciously thinking about what you watch and why you're watching it helps you use content as a tool that doesn't entirely consume you. Before you open an app for a 'hit,' it could be helpful to ask yourself, 'What's my reason for wanting to use the app right now?' Reflect on whether you're seeking entertainment, inspiration, connection or just avoiding stillness. At the same time, begin to appreciate moments of meaningless time. Make a habit of letting yourself be intentionally bored. Find ways to be away from the screen; say, take a walk without your phone, stare out the window or just sit in silence. While these moments may seem empty, they let your mind reset, reflect and reclaim its natural rhythm. Worried that you may have a penchant for doomscrolling? Take this science-backed test to find out: Doomscrolling Scale
The Guardian
30-06-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
Brain rot isn't new – but now we're all talking about it
With excellent timing, your article (From Chimpanzini Bananini to Ballerina Cappuccina: how gen alpha went wild for Italian brain rot animals, 25 June) appeared on the day that 'brain rot' was added to the Oxford English Dictionary. When researching the entry, we discovered that brain rot is nothing new. The earliest evidence of its usage that we found was in Henry David Thoreau's book Walden (1854); in it he lamented society's tendency to devalue complex ideas in favour of simple ones, viewing it as indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort. The term has been applied variously to reading too many books, watching too much television, and listening to 'pimpley music', bringing us up to date with the digital content that takes the blame currently. While it took the last year or so to really cement it in the language, it seems that nothing much has changed except the medium. Concerned parents, citizens, or even linguists can take comfort in one fact revealed by our research: the supposed consumers or victims of brain rot are often the very people using the term (to mean both the content itself and its impact on them). This suggests that – whatever the cost to intelligence or attention spans – they at least retain self-awareness or a sense of irony. To quote David Bowie, 'They're quite aware of what they're going through.'Fiona McPhersonExecutive editor, Oxford English Dictionary Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
The Guardian
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From Chimpanzini Bananini to Ballerina Cappuccina: how gen alpha went wild for Italian brain rot animals
When one of Tim's year 8 pupils asked him about his 'favourite Italian brain rot animal', he thought he'd misheard. 'My hearing is not great at the best of times – I had to ask her to repeat this probably four or five times,' he says. Tim (not his real name) was familiar with the term 'brain rot', used to describe the sense of mental decline after too much time spent mindlessly scrolling online (and voted Oxford University Press's word of the year for 2024). But what was this about it being Italian? He told his pupil to get on with her work, sat down at his laptop – and immediately turned to Google. 'Italian brain rot', he discovered, refers to a series of absurdist animal characters, generated by artificial intelligence. They have ridiculous Italian-sounding names (like Bombombini Gusini and Trippi Troppi), and typically appear in videos on TikTok accompanied by fast-paced, AI-generated and Italian-ish (though also nonsensical) narration. It is, in short, a meme beloved by the emerging generation Alpha (born from 2010 to 2025) and the youngest members of gen Z (generally those born from 1997 to 2012). And if you are any older – even if you fancy yourself as highly online, or a meme connoisseur – it is all but certain to make very little sense to you, as Tim found out at his laptop. He shares his discoveries, sounding trepidatious. 'So there's Chimpanzini Bananini, which is a chimpanzee fused with a banana. Bombardiro Crocodilo, which is a crocodile fused with a bomber plane. There's one who's just a cappuccino with legs …' That's Ballerina Cappuccina: a female ballet dancer spliced with a cup of coffee, often depicted as being in a relationship with Cappuccino Assassino (you can figure it out). 'There's history – lore – behind all these animals,' continues Tim wonderingly. 'Like, some of them are at war with each other. And there are songs about them.' And children in his class are into it on a scale he has not previously seen with a trend or meme. 'As soon as it's mentioned by one person, the entire class starts talking about it,' he says. 'They are obsessively focused on Italian brain rot.' If, reading this, you can feel your own brain decaying, that's understandable. Really, if you were born in a year that starts with the figure 1, 'Italian brain rot' is not for you. Yet its massive popularity with young people is worth at least attempting to wrap your head around as an indicator of the direction of travel of online culture. The first character to take off was a shark sporting Nike sneakers (three, one for each fin), called Tralalero Tralala. The audio – of a man's voice, speaking garbled Italian – surfaced first, on TikTok in early January, before being paired with the AI-generated image a few days later. More characters swiftly followed, spreading across TikTok. Don Caldwell, editor-in-chief of the site Know Your Meme, namechecks Brr Brr Patapim, 'a proboscis monkey that is also a tree', as one who made it to YouTube. There is also Indonesian brain rot, notably Tung Tung Tung Sahur ('which is like a stick figure with a bat, telling people to wake up for a meal during Ramadan') and Boneca Ambalabu ('a frog with a tyre for a body, and human legs'). Both are accompanied by an AI-generated voice speaking Indonesian that, like their Italian counterparts, seeks to confuse rather than convey meaning. 'The audio is at least as important, if not more important than the imagery,' says Caldwell. 'They'll be doing it really over-the-top, like 'Tra-la-lero! Tra-la-lala!' – it really goes for the whole Italian sound.' Is it offensive to Italians? 'It seems Italians have been all over this,' Caldwell says, 'so I don't think so.' Indeed, the appeal of Italian (and Indonesian) brain rot is not that it's offensive, or even subversive – but that it's so silly. After 15 years at Know Your Meme, Caldwell admits he doesn't connect with all the online ephemera that crosses his desk – 'but I really like this one,' he says. 'The dumber the meme, the better, in my opinion.' The ease and speed with which these videos can be produced on accessible tools such as ChatGPT has helped with the meme's spread. You can prompt the AI to visualise Bombardiro Crocodilo (just for example!) in a setting or scenario of your choice, or come up with a new character in that Italian brain rot style. 'You don't need to have tons of video editing ability, or even to use your own voice,' says Caldwell. For adults tired or even afraid of the rapid advance of AI, Italian brain rot may be almost reassuring in its banality. 'This is a non-threatening use of AI, not one that induces feelings of either doom or being replaced.' For young people, of course, it's not that deep. They are spending more time online now than in past generations, and from younger ages, with the result that they are influencing digital culture. 'Now you have children who are super-online,' says Caldwell, 'raised by iPads and on TikTok all the time, creating content, determining what are the biggest cultural phenomena of the time.' The last evidence of this, before Italian brain rot, was skibidi toilet: a similarly witless meme that spread from YouTube in 2023 to spark a sensation among the youngest members of gen Z. If you somehow missed it, it features (to quote from Know Your Meme) 'an army of sentient toilets with men's heads coming out of them, fighting for dominance against a bunch of men in suits with cameras for heads, and each video is gaining tens of millions of views'. Tim remembers that washing up in his classroom, too. 'The kids love it so much, the word 'skibidi' is now part of gen Z and gen Alpha vernacular.' Its meaning, however, is far from straightforward, and steeped in ambiguous irony. 'It can mean something good, something bad, something weird … If they call something 'skibidi', it's both a good thing and they're laughing at it the same time.' Taken together, skibidi toilet and Italian brain rot gleefully defy explanation, titillating young minds with their surrealist imagery and crude-seeming humour – and catch adults short in their feeble efforts at understanding. 'AI art' is no longer solely for fooling older people primarily active on Facebook, Caldwell says, giving the example of Shrimp Jesus (look it up). It is developing its own shorthand, conventions and sense that will inevitably – increasingly – go over many of our heads. It's tempting to say that memes were better in the old days. Look at the inventiveness of templates such as Distracted Boyfriend, the layered visual jokes, the endless possibilities for meaning-making. But Caldwell – himself a millennial – is more sanguine, suggesting that Italian brain rot is just another evolution of human creativity. 'The AI is making the image, there's a text-to-speech voice, but the joke itself is being invented by an actual person behind a computer.' Tim is not so sure. He's noticed, when he sets his class creative writing assignments or another imaginative task, that they leap to their favourite Italian brain rot creature. 'I think the AI generation is not having those moments of sitting down and letting their imagination run wild, because AI does it all for them – all they have to do is use ChatGPT,' he says. 'I'll say, 'This has to be completely our own; I don't want any Chimpanzini Bananini'.' But he has also started using the class's enthusiasm for Italian brain rot to engage them in lessons. In multiple-choice quizzes, every now and again, one of the four possible answers will be Tung Tung Tung Sahur, Tim says – 'just to try and grab their attention'. He also now has an answer to that year 8 pupil's question. 'My favourite is Blueberrinni Octopussini,' he says, 'which is an octopus fused with a blueberry.' Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
