The New York Times recently had an article about brain rot, the phenomena of young people (and not so young people) scrolling through social media watching videos of nonsense, and how this contributes to lower cognitive function. Brain rotters are not watching "how-to" videos to learn to cook, do yoga or fly fish. They are watching stuff with little to no content value. They are living their lives online, not IRL.
As I was pondering brain rot, I remembered Babel by R.F. Kuang, a speculative fiction novel that takes place it 1830 at Oxford University. A small group of international students are part of a special group that can translate many languages. The main purpose of this group was to facilitate international relations and trade during the time of the Opium War. The Opium War was when England dropped opium from India on China to make the Chinese addicted and therefore more docile and feeble and whatnot so they were easier to control. (Even though I was a history major, I learned more about the Opium War in this book than I did in college.)
Is brain rot the new Opium War, but a problem we are inflicting upon ourselves?
My ex is a physician and he talked about the narcotic effects screen time has on children. The "pings" we get from likes and winning games and whatnot hit the same part of our brain as cocaine. Years ago, he had a burn patient -- a young child -- who was not allowed screen time. In the hospital, they gave the kid an iPad to play with when the health care team changed the burn dressings. To be clear, having burn dressings changed are one of the most painful things a person can experience. The kid with the iPad was able to get the burn dressings changed without painkillers, which is both cool and terrifying. It is cool that the kid didn't need narcotics to get the burn dressing changed, but terrifying that kids are zoning on screens with the power of cocaine after school.
As history often repeats itself, is this where we are today?
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