Dr. Heitmayer is an assistant professor at Rowan University who studies technology distraction, attention economics and digital culture. Every decade or so, adults discover that young people are ...

If a kid in your life keeps chanting “Tralalero Tralala” or “Bombardiro Crocodilo,” you’ve been hit by Italian brain rot. Here’s what the viral AI-meme phenomenon actually is, where the goofy ...

In 2025, Yale researchers surveyed people about their cognitive function and found something troubling. Almost ten percent of those aged 18 to 34 reported some kind of cognitive disability, nearly ...

The term "brain rot" refers to how low-quality internet content may slow your brain function. It's usually tied to watching specific types of content, usually nonsensical, embarrassing, or weird. But ...

Emma Lembke joined Instagram at age 12. Soon, she found herself “scrolling mindlessly for hours, addicted to gaining a certain number of likes, a certain number of comments.” She often wanted to stop ...

This is the seventh installment in a series of articles about the science of various aspects of college life. In a matter of weeks, “6 7” has transformed from two sequential numbers to a phrase so ...

AI-generated “brain rot” videos are popping up all over the internet and getting a lot of attention. Currently gaining traction among younger users, these clips feature wild characters, like a shark ...

Every decade or so, adults discover that young people are consuming media that corrupts their minds — and a moral panic ensues. Comic books were going to produce a generation of delinquents.