News & Publications

• Heavy short-form video use is linked to weaker attention and poorer mental health. doi.org
  Mental Health Cognition Social Media

  Arguments about "brain rot" from TikTok and similar apps usually trade anecdotes rather than data. To address this, a new meta-analysis examined whether short-form video use is consistently linked with changes in cognition and mental health.

  The researchers combined 71 studies with 98,299 adolescents and adults who used platforms featuring rapid clips, including TikTok, Douyin, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. They treated short-form video engagement as the exposure, assessed with addiction style scales, time spent, frequency of use, and simple user status, and related these measures to tests and questionnaires covering attention, inhibitory control, memory, mood, stress, sleep, loneliness, and well being.

  Here are the key results:

  • Across all studies, heavier use was moderately associated with poorer cognition overall, with the clearest links for attention and for inhibitory control, the mental ability to suppress impulses and stay on task, and weaker links for memory, language, and working memory, while reasoning showed no reliable association.
  • On mental health scales, heavier use tracked with small but consistent signs of worse well being, especially more anxiety and stress, and with weaker links to depression, loneliness, negative mood, and poorer sleep, while self esteem and body image scores showed no clear pattern.
  • Measures that framed use as a behavioral addiction showed stronger associations with both cognitive and mental health problems than metrics that only counted minutes or distinguished users from non users.
  • Correlations were similar in youth and adult samples, and results changed little when studies adjusted for background factors such as age, gender, or other social media use.

  To explain these patterns, the authors draw on theories of habituation and sensitization, arguing that fast, highly stimulating clips may teach the brain to expect constant novelty, which can make slower, effortful tasks and ordinary rewards feel flat. They also point to reward circuits, contagious exposure to mental health themed content, and late night viewing that disrupts sleep as plausible routes by which heavy use could erode attention and mood, while stressing that the overwhelmingly cross-sectional evidence cannot prove cause and effect.

  Taken together, the review suggests that short-form videos are most concerning when use becomes compulsive and begins to crowd out sleep, offline relationships, or focused work rather than when people dip in occasionally or for specific purposes. The authors call for longitudinal and experimental studies that follow users over time and that distinguish types of content and motivations, so that public debates about "brain rot" can shift from slogans to concrete guidance. In this clip, I discuss concerns about early smartphone and tablet access among kids and its effects on mental health later in life.

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