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chapotraphouse @hexbear.net
sexywheat [none/use name] @hexbear.net

Harrowing thread on brainrot among youths

Holy fuck.

CW:

and generally horrifying information about the state of affairs. Some choice quotes:

People always say that every generation thinks the younger generation is getting weird, and is crazier. But I believe that what I am witnessing of the gen alphas is just completely different from the type of rebellion of my generation (gen z).

People will keep saying “we’ve always complained about the newest generation,” but society is fundamentally different now and it’s not just this generation. My parents are victims too, slaves to their devices. It seems like only some Gen X and Millennials are at least technologically aware enough to see what’s going on.

The screen and media addiction of generation alpha is actually an emergency that requires government intervention. Its literally like a black mirror episode what this stuff is doing to kids.

They are that incapable of looking at stationary with print on it. If it doesn't have a back-light and it doesn't move, it will not keep their attention.

43 comments

  • I've heard from a lot of teachers saying the same thing. The newer cohorts of students are performing far lower academically and have a lot of behavioral issues.

    It's really hard to parse out what's actually happening and what's sensationalism.

    My material analysis pet theory is that we're increasingly seeing that dual incomes are necessary to survive. The state does not provide access to childcare. Overworked parents don't have the time to spend and socialize their children. Then kids spend way too much of their developmental years on devices. To me, the devices alone wouldn't be so bad if economic conditions made it easier to actually raise children.

    Regardless of what people say about new tech every generation, what we're seeing now is an order of magnitude higher than what we've seen before. The devices and the apps on them are engineered to keep people on them as long as possible. China has recognized this and attempted to limit screen time for young people. Anyone who says that these devices are having no effect on how we process information is unserious.

  • I truly believe that the current onslaught on young people’s attention is a weird manifestation of how utterly alone we all are. I don’t want to be all woo-woo about it but I do think the “attention economy” and “brainrot” exists purely to fill the psychic wound we collectively share. I think the wound is uniquely bad for young people in that they don’t even know it’s a wound because it’s always been there. It's normal to them because they have never known otherwise, which is a damn shame. It's not their fault to be frank.

    The computer in our pockets aren’t inherently bad. I think without meaningful meatspace interactions, connections, and real social networks of love and community things like “brain rot” can grow and fester. I think really do think "brainrot" is a symptom of a larger rot in all of lives.

  • As always I'm going to preface this with my opinion that generational labels often incorrectly stereotype people based on vibes rather than facts, and that some of the coolest people you will meet are Gen Z, including many of the comrades here.

    So I mean this in the loosest way possible, in that it's probably just me imagining things, but I have noticed a general uptick in Gen Z being pit against other generations lately.

    My conspiracy brainworms are wondering if this manufactured as a distraction from real problems. Millennials are cringe, Gen Alpha are cringe, so Gen Z becomes more isolated and self-contained.

    They tried to make Millennials hate Gen Z after the election too, with the claims that Gen Z are all fash and voted for Trump.

    There has just been a weird obsession with generational warfare that I haven't seen since the "avocado toast, why aren't Millennials moving out of home at 18?" days.

    • Oh yeah, big time 100%.

      I do think, though, that kids growing up with a mobile device in their face with little to no regulation is not doing them any favours. Horrible attention spans, unable to focus, impatient, and so on.

      I didn't post this with the intention of shitting on Gen Alpha or stoking generational warfare. Moreso just to point out how short-form video platforms in particular and screen time are frying people's brains.

      Hell I even witnessed it with my own kid. For a while there we were not doing a very good job at regulating how much screen time she was getting. She would have frequent meltdowns over the dumbest and most pointless shit, couldn't regulate her emotions, couldn't focus, complained about being bored whenever she wasn't in front of a screen. As soon as we implemented some very strict daily screen time limits all of those problems went away like magic. But a lot of parents don't regulate screen time very well at all and it's setting these poor kids up to fail.

      • Regulating screen time is definitely a good idea. I agree. I wish more parents were that caring with their kids.

        I think it's similar to the video game panic people had in the 90s, but worse because it's even more predatory and unregulated than YouTube, insta, etc. I think it affects all generations, not just Gen Alpha, everyone is hooked because it's the social norm now. Although, like you say, we have to make sure to teach kids to engage with technology in a mindful way so they can recognise when capitalism is trying to hook them to the slop machine.

        The problem, like always, is everything revolving around capitalist consumer culture rather than what is actually good for people.

    • From the Gen Z side I can a little bit understand this abstract feeling that all the previous generations are the ones responsible for why everything fucking sucks and the world is ending.

      I’m at the oldest end of Gen Z so I got to grow up in the “If we take these steps, we can prevent climate change and save the world!” time, unable to influence anything and watching as no one did anything.

      Obviously blaming generations is not a good analysis, but it does feel like “everyone else ruined this for me.” Boomers obviously being the most to blame, but if we’re talking large scale we needed the 2008 recession to become a violent revolution and Millenials were the ones that were revolution age at the time. Millenials could've also done a lot in the “assassinating fossil fuel and healthcare executives” sphere, something Gen Z has started to pick up but it’s a bit too little too late, would’ve been a lot more effective 15-20 years ago, when I was still in elementary school and being told to recycle.

      Is this good, sound, material analysis? No obviously it’s not. But it’s very easy to fall into those broad feelings if you’re aware that shit’s fucked and the planet’s on fire but aren’t deeply invested into why.

      • Good comment. I remember feeling the same at your age.

        I can only speak as someone who is on the younger side of millennial, so I can relate to the climate change stuff. I was single digits when 9/11 happened. It was hard growing up and wanting to fix things, wanting someone to do something but not knowing what to do and having absolutely no guidance. Not knowing the sheer extent of evil we were dealing with. So much propaganda and gaslighting going on, telling us we were weak and stupid and to just work harder and stop complaining. We tried, but we didn't know what we were up against.

        Keep in mind that until Bernie started being popular in 2016, the idea of anything remotely left of Obama was laughable. It wasn't even in the realm of possibility. That's how fucked the political landscape was. It wasn't until I discovered the dirtbag left that I realised communism was even an option.

        But that shouldn't be an excuse. I hate how we failed the younger generations just like the Boomers failed us (and even then, there were Boomers that tried to fix things too, in their own hippie way).

        The thing that pissed me off the most growing up is when I would ask Boomers why the fuck they weren't doing anything about climate change, they would either say "that's a hundred years away stop worrying" or "the generation after yours will fix it, they'll be super smart".

        Fuck that, we shouldn't be asking young people to fix our mistakes.

  • In my experience (as a teacher) even the kids are aware of how bad this is for them. The term "brainrot" is a kind of "joking, but not really" piece of jargon that they use among themselves. The see their peers' and their own attention span being ruined by social media, and their peers falling into the fash pipeline. I think it's hard for a lot of them to muster much in the way of concern, though, because they also see that they're living in the last stages of a decaying empire and collapsing environment. It's hard to motivate someone to care about the future and their ability to succeed in it when it's apparent that the best case scenario for most of them is life as a peasant in a techo-feudal dystopia. If they don't die in the coming water wars, they're going to live as indentured servants to Peter Thiel; they have no chance of owning a home, affording a family, or achieving anything beyond living to die another day under the bootheel of the most ruthless capitalism the world has seen in over a century. Why not just watch TikTok all day?

  • I'm gen z when I was 12, smartphones were kinda shit and most people in my country couldn't afford it, so everything was on desktops. I think that worked as a good control.

    Social media only became widespread by 2016 and most had phones by then, everyone was on Facebook, Instagram and all that. I don't think it was too damaging. But then again, short form content wasn't much of a thing.

    I think short form video content is especially damaging, I have many times fallen for it myself with tiktok and shorts. You end up watching hundreds of videos on very different topics, it's a time suck. There needs to be tight controls on these for everyone, adults and minors, max 30 minutes a day or something.

    Not many are watching Andrew Tate's long form videos, they watch short 1 minute clips.

    • I think that worked as a good control.

      100%. Computers used to require work and effort to understand them, and of course didn't fit in your pocket.

43 comments