“Mind rot” is the time period of the yr for 2024, referring to considerations that endlessly scrolling by means of social media movies and different content material may cause hurt. Right here, TikTok’s emblem is seen on a cell phone in entrance of a pc display displaying a TikTok residence display. (AP Picture/Michael Dwyer, File)
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Michael Dwyer/AP/AP
It is commonplace for the phrases of influencers to realize reputation. However the influential thinker Henry David Thoreau was born greater than 200 years in the past — and now a time period he is credited with introducing, “mind rot,” is the Oxford College Press’s phrase or phrase of 2024.
Mind rot was chosen by 1000’s of on-line voters. However that does not essentially imply they’re well-versed in Thoreau’s work, significantly his 1854 guide Walden, or Life within the Woods, the place he wrote about “brain-rot.” It was the primary recorded use of the time period, in line with Oxford College Press.
Right this moment, brain rot reflects a worry that consuming the web’s countless waves of memes and video clips, particularly on social media, would possibly numb one’s noggin.
In Walden, Thoreau used the time period as he railed towards oversimplification.
He asked, “Why stage downward to our dullest notion at all times, and reward that as widespread sense?”
Thoreau ended that paragraph with one other query: “Whereas England endeavors to remedy the potato-rot, is not going to any endeavor to remedy the brain-rot, which prevails a lot extra extensively and fatally?”
So, is the brand new rot the identical because the previous rot?
Oxford’s language consultants say mind rot gained traction on platforms akin to TikTok this yr, due to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. Frequency of the time period’s use grew by 230% from 2023 to 2024, in line with the writer’s monitoring instruments.
At first look, the connection to Thoreau could appear odd, however think about this: when Thoreau relocated to his cabin close to Walden Pond to get again to fundamentals in 1845, he was 27 years previous — the identical age because the oldest Gen Z members.
To raised get a way of how Thoreau noticed mind rot within the 1800s, NPR contacted Cristin Ellis, an authority on Thoreau who teaches literature on the College of Mississippi.
“For Thoreau, ‘brain-rot describes what occurs to our minds and spirits once we suppress our innate instincts for curiosity and surprise,” Ellis says, “and as a substitute resign ourselves to the unreflective habits we observe throughout us — habits of becoming in, getting by, chasing income, chatting concerning the newest information.”
In as we speak’s utilization, mind rot is seen as a foul factor, kind of a cautionary time period for what would possibly occur to us if we get too distracted.
“I feel the definitions are associated however Thoreau’s sense of mind rot is far more excessive,” Ellis says.
“It isn’t simply TikTok dance crazes however just about our whole 24/7 media tradition — together with the “severe” information of newspapers — that Thoreau would accuse of trivializing our minds,” she provides.
“Thoreau actually values direct expertise over our habits of consuming different peoples’ concepts at second hand,” Ellis says. “He desires us to go outdoors to really feel and suppose one thing for ourselves; he desires us to get to know the locations the place we truly dwell.”
Recognition hints at on-line anxieties
Phrases of the yr typically mark shifts in thought and considerations about the place society is heading — see “local weather emergency” from 2019 and “vax” from 2021.
In comparison with Oxford’s latest phrases of the yr, mind rot suggests a reflective temper, after the extra indulgent vibes of “goblin mode” in 2022 and “rizz” in 2023.
Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, stated in a information launch despatched to NPR that he finds it fascinating that “mind rot” is being embraced by youthful individuals. “It looks like a rightful subsequent chapter within the cultural dialog about humanity and expertise,” he stated.
“There’s an anxiousness coming by means of about putting the best steadiness between the web world and shedding contact with the true world,” Oxford Languages product director Katherine Martin stated. “I feel it is nice that younger individuals additionally use this time period to check with the kind of language utilized by individuals who overindulge in on-line content material, which is splendidly recursive and self-referential.”
“Mind rot” beat out 5 different contenders: demure; dynamic pricing; romantasy; slop; and lore.
Demure grew to become a sensation — and is Dictionary.com’s word of 2024 — largely due to on-line content material creator Jools Lebron’s catchphrase, “very demure, very aware.”
Again to Thoreau — how would possibly he have seen our tradition?
“I feel he would possibly truly see us as in a roughly related predicament because the society he lived in,” Ellis says. “He had no time for the criticism that societies previously have been by some means higher, nobler, smarter than the current day.”
Shortly after Thoreau raises the specter of “mind rot” in Walden, he warns readers towards being distracted by questions concerning the deterioration of society’s collective mind. He additionally returns to a central theme: individuals ought to goal for their very own private achievements.
“His level right here is that whether or not or not issues are worse now than they have been (and typically he is skeptical of that sort of nostalgia), our job always is identical: to attempt our hardest to commit ourselves to the issues that matter most in our transient and miraculous lives,” Ellis says.
“Dedicate your consideration to what you recognize, in your coronary heart of coronary heart, actually issues: that means, magnificence, love, surprise, and gratitude for this earth.”
