Welcome back to Roar: The Podcast, Season 4. In this round table podcast, sophomore Amanda Troll, sophomore Ellen Vu, sophomore Jackie Duran, and junior Theodore Nguyen discuss the brain rot surrounding social media.
Speakers:
- Sophomores Amanda Troll, Ellen Vu, Jackie Duran, and junior Theodore Nguyen
For reference:
A – Amanda Troll
E – Ellen Vu
J – Jackie Duran
T – Theodore Nguyen
A: Hello everybody and welcome to Santa Clara’s The Roar podcast.
E: I’m Ellen Vu. I’m a sophomore at Santa Clara High School, and I’m a staff writer for The Roar.
J: I’m Jackie Duran. I’m also a sophomore at Santa Clara High School and a staff writer for The Roar.
T: I’m Theodore Nguyen. I am a junior at Santa Clara High School, and I am the Alternative Media Editor for The Roar.
A: And I’m Amanda Troll. I’m a sophomore at Santa Clara High School. I am the host today and a staff writer. Today we’re going to be talking about the brain rot that our generation is facing due to social media consumption on a daily basis.
T: So, what do you mean by brain rot?
J: At least from what TikTok has kind of promoted, brain rot to be is just the fact that teenagers especially are on the app so often, and it’s really all that they surround themselves with so it kind of turns into this, almost, I don’t know, deterioration of someone’s brain by only being on TikTok and by only being surrounded by a bunch of micro trends, or certain language. Just the fact that you’re on TikTok so often that there’s very little else out there.
A: By social media consumption, we include TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, any platforms that our generation would spend quote unquote, “an obscene amount of time” on.
E: I can definitely see it consuming their outside lives by using TikTok language outside, like in school, outside with their friends, and many people who aren’t as, like the term, “chronically online,” and always on their phone using social media. They often don’t get it and are looked down upon when they are always using those terms.
T: Yeah, I can totally agree with that. I mean, there’s just a bunch of phrases that’ve been used around a lot in school. I mean, I’m just going to name off a few. “Skibidi Toilet,” “rizzler,” “Ohio.” You know, I don’t understand them.
I can see why the younger generation would like it. Just because it makes no sense, and it’s just funny to them for no reason. You know, I don’t particularly like it.
A: Slang and trends and different kinds of fads (are) spread so quickly through social media platforms that it’s almost a way of our generation communicating with each other, not only because, you know, through Instagram and TikTok you can message each other, but just through being able to connect through phrases like “rizzler” and “Skibidi Toilet” because it’s our generation’s way of talking. Also just through the trends that we see, like everybody’s buying Stanleys because everybody sees that Stanleys are really popular, and so on and so forth.
J: Yeah, and I feel like people are on TikTok so often because of how many, what’s the word, how many parts of it there are. There’s stories, there’s the following list, there’s TikTok Shop, which has become super popular. People can make music, learn languages, and there’s so much to do on TikTok. Especially with TikTok Shop, people are buying groceries, I think, on TikTok Shop. If that’s the only app you’re using, yeah, people be buying groceries.
T: You can buy groceries on that?
J: Yeah.
T: That’s crazy.
J: If the only thing that people are consuming is TikTok, and that’s the only app that they’re using, it’s very hard for people not to get obsessed with it. Again, like Amanda said, use it as quote, “for an obscene amount of time”
A: For it to consume you.
J: Yeah. Yeah. There’s so much to do and so much content that can be consumed that it’s so difficult to get off the app.
E: I feel like we can see the generational changes through the language used on TikTok, like, I feel like the trendy word now is the word “bop,” and it’s not used in a good way. Do we all know what it means?
T: No, could you emphasize on what that means?
A: Okay, make sure it’s in a family friendly way for our school podcast.
E: And people, they usually use “bop” towards women to slut shame them, but before it was popular on TikTok, “bop” usually meant like, “Oh, it’s a good song. Like, wow, that was a bop.”
T: Oh, okay. I know what you’re talking about.
E: It’s definitely changed and used.
A: It’s become more of, “This woman bops around to different men” in a sexual manner.
T: That’s kind of crazy. Reinventing, I guess, language that people have used before but in their own way is something I haven’t—
A: These kinds of phrases are spread so quickly through social media that sometimes people don’t even understand the meaning of it, or they are given false information of the meaning of a word and they use it carelessly because they think they know the meaning, but it actually means something else. They end up either hurting somebody’s feelings, or saying something that they don’t actually mean.
J: I feel like – I’m 15. I’m 100% Gen Z. I’m very young and even like “Skibidi Toilet,” I have no idea what they mean. It’s like having all these super, super young people on the app and creating their own trends, it’s honestly insane that there’s so many different types of people that are using the app. It truly can consume every part of the world.
A: There’s so many trends and there’s so much language that you can’t understand all of it.
J: It’s insane that there’s so much content.
A: Going back to what you said about the TikTok shop. Well, I guess like another thing that I wanted to say is just how many people make a living off of TikTok. There’s so many influencers and celebrities and people who sell their products and promote their products through TikTok and through social media that there might have been a ban on TikTok, or – that was something that came up that we want to talk about later.
If TikTok was banned and social media platforms were banned, there’d be so many people that would be out of a job their products would go downhill. They wouldn’t make money to support themselves. I mean, we see people like Charlie D’Amelio and Addison Rae and all those people blowing up through social media, and it’s become their life.
T: I’d like to think… well, you said something about TikTok shops. Are they just using TikTok as a platform to sell specific products, or like general products?
J: It’s a lot.
A: It’s a mix.
T: It’s a mix? Okay.
A: It’s like, how do we describe it?
T: Is it like dropshipping?
J: Yeah, I was gonna say there’s a lot of dropshipping, there’s a lot of small businesses. There’s a lot of big businesses, like Amazon, I think, sells on TikTok Shop. Anyone, I think, can sell on TikTok Shop, but it’s definitely become a really useful thing for small businesses because now, instead of having someone be directed onto a different site, it’s directly through TikTok.
T: That’s kind of interesting. I guess the closest equivalent I’d liken it to is Facebook Marketplace.
A: Even Facebook Marketplace… wasn’t it just taken off of Facebook? So, like, now TikTok Shop—
Members shake their heads, responding “no”.
A: Really? It wasn’t?
E: It’s still on there.
A: Oh, it’s still on there? Okay, never mind. I was given false information then.
T: Going back to what you said about many people using it as a part of their jobs now in their daily lives. There was this one specific trend I remember at one point on TikTok where people were acting like NPCs for some reason. That was interesting. Quite interesting. It definitely did feed into the brain rot.
E: The TikTok shop stuff you guys were talking about, and everything that’s being put into TikTok now, that’s using a lot of the user’s private information. I’ve seen online that the U.S. government has been very concerned about it. There’s been a lot of, I don’t know the word, like, Congress meetings about it, especially with the CEO of TikTok.
T: Oh, congressional hearings.
E: Yeah, congressional hearings. There’s been multiple, and a lot of it has been like video lies on TikTok. And it’s about the privacy of users and just worries about it, right? I noticed that with the risk of TikTok being banned, a lot of teenagers are really… this is the first time I’ve seen a lot of teenagers put up for political action about a social media app.
On Instagram there was lots of posts, people got notifications from the TikTok app saying, “Call your local state and tell them to not ban TikTok.” I’ve—
A: The amount of passion from our generation about keeping this app.
E: There were complaints from Congress that – thousands and thousands – they got thousands of calls that day. It was like a couple weeks ago, and I’m interested in what the effects would be for teenagers, especially like us, if TikTok were to be banned because so many people use it.
A: That makes me wonder about the “what ifs” of what would happen if TikTok got banned. I know I talked about before with TikTok Shop and how people were promoting their small business and stuff like that, how they would not have a job anymore, or their steady income would not be there anymore.
I also wonder if Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts would become the next TikTok, and if all the trends and all the videos posted on TikTok would now be posted on Instagram. It makes me think back to over the summer. I was attending a surf camp where I was learning how to surf, and there was very, very limited data or WiFi there. One of the counselors was telling me about how she didn’t find out about the Titanic submarine that imploded until a month or two later because it didn’t pop up in her Instagram reels until a month or two later.
It makes me wonder, would our trends—
T: Carry over?
A: Yeah, carry over, or would we have the same fast-consuming lingo and trends and stuff like that as we do now.
T: Shucks, that’s honestly a good implication, but I honestly think that even if TikTok dies out either forcefully by the government or by some other factor, there still would be a migration over to Instagram Reels and to YouTube Shorts and every other alternative that’s out there. But yeah.
E: I think the brain rot would definitely still be there. I think it’s not just TikTok but overall social media, especially the short videos. I feel like the short videos that people consume and just swipe, keep swiping for hours, it’s definitely because of the algorithm, and like you were saying, Instagram reels, I think it has much larger problems than TikTok because people are starting to normalize them seeing—
T: Oh, they’re really unhinged.
E: Yeah, very unhinged videos. But it’s not unhinged. It’s not human. It’s videos of car crashes, people dying, uncensored, and it’s very normalized on Instagram Reels. People know it for that.
A: Instagram isn’t as monitored as TikTok is. I’ve seen people breaking legs, getting shot. I’ve seen insane stuff on Instagram Reels.
J: I wanted to add that, in my opinion, I think that even if TikTok got banned, someone would make an app like it. I don’t think Instagram Reels could be what TikTok is because in my experience at least with reels, again, it’s very unhinged. It’s not censored. It’s not regulated – none of the videos. I feel like it’s not personalized like TikTok is. TikTok’s “For You” page is very much for you.
They take all of your data and even what you buy off a TikTok shop, and what you post, or what sounds you save, they take that into consideration when they show you videos that you might want to see.
Instagram Reels doesn’t do that. Even though Instagram is very close to TikTok – it has stories, it has… obviously you can post. You can, um, there’s Instagram shop, right? Yeah, they’ve had an Instagram shop for a while. But TikTok is just for some reason, it’s like a whole different world almost.
T: I think that’s why the government is really interested in TikTok because, again, it’s all about user privacy and the amount of data that’s being aggregated and collected is really causing some concerns over, “Hey, should we be using this?” Especially considering that TikTok is a Chinese-affiliated company, is obviously a source of concern. But, I think going back to your comments about Instagram Reels, you’re right because it’s the level of normalization and unhinged nature that Instagram Reels really brings. Even in the comments. They are really crazy, really crazy. I mean, you got people making really wild statements about another person’s body or—
A: Or their race.
T: Oh yeah, or their race. I mean, you wouldn’t be seeing this on YouTube or on TikTok, but Instagram has got to be the worst of both worlds.
A: It’s so much more out of pocket.
J: Even on TikTok, people in comments will say, “Oh, post this on Instagram Reels” because they know Instagram Reels is, again, it’s a completely different universe on social media, I feel like.
A: That makes me wonder, would the brain rot from Instagram Reels being the new TikTok, or having more unmonitored, short, videos being consumed every day, would that – going back to our theme of brain rot – would that… how would our generation change, or how would people consuming this media change because now they’re consuming more racist content, more violent content, more out of pocket content?
J: Would Instagram Reels account for that. Would they change, or would they just let people keep consuming that?
A: But then again, our generation is so powerful it might not even just be on social media. I would say most people that are on social media are so passionate about it that the second that TikTok goes away, there’s going to be another app popping up to replace it.
E: This is definitely affecting the people that are consuming TikTok and social media so much. What circulates around those apps definitely impacts them as a person. The way that people are acting nowadays, I feel like there’s less empathy. People are more… they want to say they’re “more real,” but they’re just… it’s straight up they’re being disrespectful, but they just say, “Oh, I’m being honest,” “It’s real,” “It’s what people online would say.” But it makes such a difference because obviously it’s online compared to real life conversations.
T: I think that’s the difference between social media and real life because with social media, you have people just saying really unhinged things without consequences and just because they’ve grown normal to doing this on the internet, it’s just slowly translated over to them doing this in real life. I think that’s inherently the issue with the brain rot.
A: Okay, so moving away from whether or not TikTok should be banned or the consequences of TikTok being banned, I want to focus one more time on the effect it’s had consuming these kinds of social media is having on our brains because our attention span is shortening so much because every day we’re consuming so many 15 seconds or shorter videos, and it’s going so fast that our attention span is getting shorter and shorter.
T: Honestly, the way that you’re mentioning this now, this reminds me a lot of a really popular dystopian book I’ve read, Fahrenheit 451, if any of you guys are familiar with it. (Yeah.) About the commentary about people consuming mass media a lot. It’s like, “Oh my gosh, zoom, bang, bing, bang, bop.”
A: We’re getting hit with so much information that our brains like, kinds of—
T: Yeah. It’s coming at us. We like to enjoy it, but it’s just our attention span is shortening so, so fast because of this, and I fear that it’ll become a reality one of these days.
E: This is also affecting how people read books because I think I’ve seen that the literary skills of the younger kids it’s getting worse, and people think it’s because of their short attention spans, which are probably caused from the short videos online, TikTok, Instagram or YouTube because it’s so easy to go for scroll for hours and hours because you’re not looking at the time you’re spending time on a short video. You just keep going, going. This connects to people’s intellectual skills, common sense. People just don’t have that anymore. They don’t realize.
A: Yeah, I definitely agree because, you know, I love to write, but I don’t think I would have the patience to sit for like even an hour and write a freaking book.
T: On the topic of attention span, let’s all drop our average screen time hours, since, you know, our devices now have that ability.
J: My average is six hours, and so far this week, I’ve been on TikTok for 12 hours. It’s Friday.
A: My phone’s not loading my average, but I would say it’s normally around like a good 5 or 6 hours.
T: Unfortunately my phone reset for some reason, but I remember… usually my, I remember recalling just my hours being like between 6 to 8 hours.
A: You’re worse than us!
J: Woah.
E: I’m gonna end it on a high, very high note. And like some weeks where we don’t have school, my, okay, not just TikTok, but TikTok is about half of it. My screen time for just my phone per day could go up to 10 to 12 hours. I’ve had 14 hours before. I tried to restrict myself. I have my time restriction set daily for 2.5 hours, which I think is already a lot ‘cause that’s getting a full eight hours, trying to get some sleep. It’s hard as a student to have this leisure time. Well, TikTok shouldn’t be considered leisure time I feel like. Just read a book.
T: Free time. Free time. That’s what we call it.
A: Guys, I don’t know what happened. My phone won’t load. Yeah, like an hour average. Like, you know, just a little texting here, a little YouTube here.”
T: Yeah, I don’t know how it got, like, six to eight hours!
A: Oh, I was just like, my phone just started, like, kept running.
T: Yeah, yeah, I left it on at night.
E: I’ve heard people complain. They’re like, “Oh, my screen time is so bad. I have five hours today. I’m on my phone so much.” And comparing mine to theirs, I’m like, “It’s eight hours!”
T: I think that’s a good, humble mindset at least.
E: Yeah, I mean, hitting eight hours daily, and having two to three of them being on TikTok where I could be doing something else like studying, it’s really impacting me as a student.
A: To wrap all of this up, I guess we could say there is a lot of good that can come out of TikTok and other social media platforms such as, you know, people promoting their brands. It’s a way that trends and lingo go around so fast that we can all connect with each other through social media. But we also have to keep in mind the negatives that it does to our minds and to our social skills because of our shortened attention spans and how much it consumes our daily life.
J: This is Jackie.
A: This is Amanda.
E: This is Ellen.
T: This is Theo.
J, E, A: This has been Big Mouths
T: and Theo!
J, E, A: signing off.