Oxford University Press has officially dubbed "brain rot" its 2024 Word of the Year.

For the publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary, however, 2024 was the year of brain rot. "Brain rot" is a term that describes either the cause or effect of spending hours online viewing trivial information.

Oxford University Press names "brain rot" as its 2024 word of the year in a nod to modern scrolling habits. "The term has taken on new significance in the digital age."

Oxford University Press said the phrase "brain rot" gained "new prominence in 2024," with its frequency of use increasing 230% from the year before.

Oxford University's new word of the year epitomizes the mindlessness that dominates social media. “More than 37,000 people voted to

The first recorded use of “brain rot,” according to Oxford University Press, was in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, published in 1854. “While England endeavours to cure the potato-rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot, which prevails so much more widely and fatally?” wrote Thoreau in his treatise on transcendentalism.

Overused and unavoidable, the term reflects a year spent doomscrolling and consuming digital fluff. Oxford University Press just announced its always-anticipated word of the year. No, it’s not some pretentious jargon only uttered by the world’s top thinkers.

For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, consuming low-value social media content isn’t a chronic condition—it’s a way of forming a shared language

The recent Oxford survey revealed that "brain rot" is its "Word of the Year 2024." Is this disgust for a single year or a harbinger of humanity's future?