The University of Oxford declared "brain rot" the word of the year for 2024. This widely used term throughout 2024 refers to the deterioration of mental or intellectual capacity caused by excessive consumption of shallow, primarily online, information that lacks significance and fails to engage the brain. A brain that isn’t actively engaged becomes lazy, loses sharpness, dulls, and eventually rusts.

It’s a paradox of our time—despite encountering more information than ever before, we rarely put our brains to work. This happens because such information requires little effort to understand or absorb. And so, left half-idle, the brain doesn’t function; it merely vegetates.

In fact, with the emergence of large language models like ChatGPT, the risk of mental dullness has become even more alarming. A simple prompt accompanied by a click provides us with structured information—essays, articles, announcements, messages, discussions, and more.

Viewed this way, our brains and our capacity for thought face an even greater danger than before. Ready-made or semi-prepared content encourages laziness, and like all tools, the brain risks becoming dull when underutilized. Meanwhile, reasoning and critical thinking risk rusting away.

Despite this grim outlook, there’s also a glimmer of hope—albeit subtle. The term "brain rot" was first used 170 years ago by Henry David Thoreau, who criticized the tendency to abandon complex ideas in favor of simpler ones, viewing it as a sign of overall intellectual and mental decline.

An optimist might say: for nearly two centuries, predictions of brain decay have persisted, yet human thought, science, technology, philosophy, art, and other intellectual activities have advanced without being hindered by such threats. Meanwhile, a pessimist might lament, cry out, and proclaim that the end of human intelligence is near.

The truth, perhaps, lies somewhere in between.