Scrolling through silly or nonsensical social media posts can have an unofficial side effect: "brain rot." Why it matters: It's a phrase Oxford University Press said "gained new prominence in 2024" — so much so that Oxford dubbed the term its word of the year.

Capping off a year that proved, without a shadow of a doubt, that non- A.V. Club readers are spending too much time ingesting the worst shit imaginable online, the Oxford University Press has named “brain rot” Word of the Year.

Do you get a weird feeling after scrolling through social media apps for hours while consuming mind-numbing content? If yes, then brain rot is the term to describe it. This term,

Oxford University Press has named “brain rot” its word of the year. It's defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state,” especially from consuming too much low-grade online content.

Oxford University Press, the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary, enlisted the help of more than 37,000 people to vote for a winning word from a shortlist of six words. It defined "brain rot" as the "supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state,

The Oxford University Press word or phrase of the year is officially ‘brain rot.’ A rather telling "symptom of the time we're living in,” don’t you think? Buzz60’s Chloe Hurst has the story!