>‘Brain rot’ is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration”.
Trivial / unchallenging is not the problem, in my opinion. Sometimes it's good to relax and give yourself a break. Staring at the wall and letting your mind wander is trivial and unchallenging, but it's not going to rot your brain.
The problem is overstimulating shortform content that wrecks your attention span.
But I don't believe super-longform content is necessarily the solution, either. If you force yourself to think about the same thing for too long, it effectively becomes work, and generates the same sort of mental fatigue. That's sort of pointless if you're trying to relax and recover.
I think it's best to aim for a sweet spot of "unchallenging and also understimulating".
Trivial / unchallenging is not the problem, in my opinion. Sometimes it's good to relax and give yourself a break. Staring at the wall and letting your mind wander is trivial and unchallenging, but it's not going to rot your brain.
The problem is overstimulating shortform content that wrecks your attention span.
But I don't believe super-longform content is necessarily the solution, either. If you force yourself to think about the same thing for too long, it effectively becomes work, and generates the same sort of mental fatigue. That's sort of pointless if you're trying to relax and recover.
I think it's best to aim for a sweet spot of "unchallenging and also understimulating".