Have you ever opened your phone to check one thing…
…and looked up 40 minutes later wondering what just happened?
You’re not alone. In a recent New York Times essay, researcher Maxi Heitmayer writes about what younger people have started calling “brain rot”: that foggy state that can develop after spending enough time scrolling through an endless stream of short videos.
Interestingly, the young people Heitmayer studied weren’t oblivious to what was happening. They knew.
They described feeling drained, guilty, and stuck in a cycle they didn’t particularly enjoy. Some even described continuing to scroll because, once mentally exhausted, meaningless content was about all they had energy left to consume.
That’s an important distinction. Sometimes the problem isn’t that we lack discipline. The environment we’re in is specifically designed to keep our attention. So while larger changes to social media platforms may ultimately be necessary, there are still ways we can make it easier to protect our attention right now.
Notice the feeling.
Learn to recognize the point when enjoyable scrolling becomes automatic scrolling. Foggy, bored, restless, or “I don’t even know why I’m still watching this” are pretty good clues.
Create a stopping point before you start.
Instead of “I’ll scroll for a little while,” try something concrete: ten minutes, five videos, or until your coffee is finished.
Add a little friction.
Turn off unnecessary notifications. Move tempting apps off your home screen. Log out. Charge your phone somewhere other than next to your bed. Tiny inconveniences give your brain a moment to make an actual choice.
Choose instead of being chosen for.
Watch a specific show. Read an article. Listen to an album. Call someone. Pick something with a beginning and an end rather than handing the next hour to an algorithm.
Protect a little uninterrupted attention.
Read a few pages. Cook something. Take a walk without your phone. Have a conversation without checking it. You don’t need hours of deep contemplation. Start with ten minutes.
And perhaps most importantly, don’t turn this into another reason to criticize yourself. These platforms are very good at capturing attention. The goal isn’t perfect self-control. It’s occasionally noticing where your attention has gone and deciding whether you’d like it back.
The takeaway: Your attention is one of the most valuable things you have. You don’t have to protect every second of it. But try not to give all of it away by accident.
Today’s challenge: The next time you catch yourself mindlessly scrolling, don’t immediately criticize yourself or even force yourself to stop.
Just ask: “Is this still how I want to be spending my time?” Then make the next choice on purpose.