How to cure brain rot

[Music] A lot of people have been feeling as if though something sinister is happening to their brains. They feel as if though their excessive use of the internet and the types of videos they watch on there is making them dumber. And this probably isn't news to anybody. It is abundantly clear that basically every social media app now has some sort of short form content tab that you can click to, and they kind of want you to click on it because they know that you will spend a lot of time on there because of the novelty of it.

The content itself is designed to keep you watching as long as possible by any means necessary, sometimes even by playing two videos at the same time to keep the novelty up, to keep the dopamine flowing. But people have really started to notice that the more they consume this content, the dumber they feel, the more useless they feel, to the point where people have now coined the term "brain rot content," insinuating that by consuming this content, your brain is rotting; it is degenerating in some way.

And there's some truth to this. Studies have found that the human attention span is decreasing to the point now where the average phone pickup lasts about 10 seconds, and that was in 2021. But people have been talking about this for a long time. I'm not saying anything new here, and the term "brain rot" wouldn't have been coined if nobody was talking about it. But is it actually true? Is the modern internet landscape rotting holes in all of our brains to the point where we are just degenerate human beings now? We are zombies, just slaves to the algorithm, prisoners to our phones?

And is there nothing we can do about it? Well, of course, there's nothing you can do about it. It's over; we're doomed, pack it up. But here's the thing: I think we're asking the wrong questions. I think society has become pretty obsessed with the idea that external forces cause them to do certain things. It’s like, "Oh, this short form content is now on the internet, and it's there, and it's so addictive that it's making everybody just watch it." And people are getting hooked on it, and it's frying their brains, and now we're just a bunch of NPCs.

But the truth is, nothing can make you do anything. You know, short form content is inanimate; it can't make you watch it. There are plenty of things that might be really bad for you that you are currently not tempted to go and consume. Now, there is something to be said about giving smartphones to toddlers and turning them into iPad kids. But if you're watching this, then chances are you have a fully formed brain or something close to it.

And if that's the case, I want you to know that you are in full control over all of your actions in life, even though it might not seem like it at times. You know, people who have anger issues, they say, "Man, I just can't control my anger." It's like, well, you can. And a lot of people who go through rehabilitation learn that they do have control over their anger. Getting over their anger issues is about learning that they have had control; it's learning to exercise that control in a healthier way.

Now, this leads me to what I believe is the actual brain rot in society. There is a pervasive sentiment going on right now, and I don't know how long it's been going on for. I suspect a lot longer than social media has been around, and it's this parasitic idea that you are not in control over your own actions. It's this idea that the things that are around you—in your environment, inanimate objects, situations—can make you do things that you don't want to do.

That's just not true. The real brain rot is thinking, "Oh, you know, I should be doing my work, but you know, I'm just so addicted to my phone, and I get down this rabbit hole, and I can't stop." Or, "Once I beat my internet addiction, I will finally be a productive human being. Then I can start living the life I want. I just need to, you know, reel it in. I need to just learn how to beat this thing."

That type of belief system is a feedback loop that you will never get out of. It's subscribing to this idea of helplessness; it's determinism. It's rejecting the idea that you have free will. And when it comes to your own behaviors, a lot of the time, the ideas that you subscribe to become true for you. If you believe that you are helpless, that you're just a leaf blowing in the wind in your own life, then that will become true for you.

You'll wait around for some perfect situation to line up; the stars will align perfectly, and that will make you do something that you already want to do. You make, on average, 35,000 decisions every single day. A decision implies that there are multiple options on the table and that you have the autonomy to actually choose from an array of options. Otherwise, it's not really a decision, which means that you have the ability to make a different decision.

Every single one of these decisions can be different, and just because certain decisions are a little bit harder or easier, or they might feel that way, doesn't mean that you don't have the option and that you don't make the decision. So a really good example of this distortion of control is the election that just happened in the United States. I'm up here in Canada, so I have a degree of separation from the drama.

So with the election, you have an outcome that shapes what it feels like to live in a certain country. Right? The country that you live in is your environment. There are certain laws and there are certain rules, and when those laws and rules change, it can feel pretty different. But whatever the outcome of an election is, is the outcome.

Right? Like, you individually don't make a difference in that outcome. You only have the illusion of making a difference. You have very powerful people who lobby and control things and have all of the money and power, and they present you with this option: "Right, here's your control, citizen. You can choose this candidate or this candidate," and it makes you feel like you're really making a difference.

It's like, "Oh, cool, I get to make a choice now. The fate of the country is in my hands." But it's like, no, it's not. You individually don't get to decide what the food supply is or what the border security is like; you don't make all these decisions. You only have the illusion of decision.

So to argue about what that decision ultimately came to, in my opinion, is really dumb. Doing that is like being involved in a poker game. You're sitting there at the poker table, and the dealer hands you a card, and instead of trying to maximize the hand that you're dealt, even if it's a horrible hand, instead of trying to decide for yourself what you do when you get that hand, you don't play the game.

You argue with the dealer; you argue with everybody at the table about like how stupid this hand is. But it's like, no matter what, the hand you're dealt is the hand you're dealt. You may have an opinion, and you might know for certain what a good hand looks like, but even if you get the best hand in poker, somebody else could have a better hand just based on the mixture of cards at the table.

No matter what, ultimately the decisions that you make will determine the outcome of the game for you. You have far less control over the hand you're dealt than you think you do, and you have way more control over how you play that hand than you've been led to believe.

So what does this all mean? How do we solve the problem of brain rot? How do you take control over your own life and actually change your behavior so you stop feeling like a passenger in your own life and get back into the driver's seat? Well, we'll go over some practical tips after, I think, the sponsor of today's video, which is Skillshare.

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Okay, so now that you're equipped with the mindset that will help you counteract brain rot, which I believe is the most important step, what are some practical ways that you can actually remember this mindset and stay on track so that you can start attacking life instead of being a passenger who just consumes stupid videos all day and regrets it later?

Well, the number one thing that you can do is be conscious of this thing that I call mental posture and structure your day with that in mind. So what the hell am I talking about? So everybody kind of already instinctually feels what I mean when I say mental posture. You know when you're kind of consuming content all day—say you're down a YouTube rabbit hole—it feels like almost mentally your brain itself is lounging back, and you're scrolling content, and you have this sort of passive mindset.

You know, you want things to entertain you; you want things to affect you; you don't really want to do anything. The goal here isn't to be a perfect human being; it's to feel as if though, know that you're doing a better job of being a person—the person that you want to be. So what I've done is I've really made sure to structure my day so that I am starting the first half of the day with a more aggressive and proactive mental posture.

And it's really hard to get into that framework if the first part of your day is riddled with this sort of passive mental posture, which means don't start your day by getting into this YouTube rabbit hole. Don't start your day by being a passenger and a consumer of things. And you do that by just doing nothing really, right? Instead of going on your phone, don't go on your phone. It's that simple.

Go get your coffee or whatever you want to do; start your day off slow with very little stimulation and start thinking about the things you want to do that day. And I think naturally your motivation kicks in if you don't flood it with consumption. If you have absolutely no stimulation except the delicious cup of coffee that you have and the sound of the rain hitting the window, then your imagination will actually have time to breathe.

You'll think, "Oh, you know, maybe you have to go to work." I think most people have to go to work, but it's like, "Okay, how do I want this workday to go?" You start thinking of ways that you can play your poker hand to the best of your ability. You know, "What hand am I going to be dealt today, and how can I play that hand better?"

Whereas if you start the day and you, you know, for the first hour of the day before you go to work, you're just in this YouTube shorts or Instagram reels bit, then you're just going to start that day off being affected by things. You have this mental posture of passivity, and you're not going to attack life and mold it to your will.

The second thing you can do is to eliminate things that pull you into this habit of consumerism. One of the most useful things that you can do is delete stupid apps from your phone that you waste a lot of time on. Number one, you know, I make chronic Instagram deleter. I'll download TikTok like once every two months when somebody sends me a TikTok, and I have to react to it or respond to it. And TikTok does that stupid thing where it makes you make an account or something. I don't know, just delete stuff that you don't want on your phone.

It sounds obvious, but a lot of people don't do it. They just have all these time-wasting apps on their phone, and they expect that they won't click on it one day. You don't have to delete your account, although that's what I did. You'll probably get there, to be honest, but just delete the app. And then secondly, go into the settings of your phone and disable like 99% of all of your notifications for things. What do you really need to be notified about other than somebody sending you a text message directly or receiving a phone call?

You don't need Adobe PDF scanner texting you and causing a phone pickup. Adobe PDF scanner, what the? So do a serious vetting of your phone, making sure that you are reducing phone pickups that will pull you out of being a proactive person in your life and back into being this tax seat driver.

And the third thing I would say is do as many things as you can that make you present. You know, I play hockey; I go to the gym. These things kind of pull you into the present moment, and it gets you in the habit of actually doing things and moving things in space and time and contributing to the world physically. And these things can be things that you genuinely enjoy doing. You know, these are nice moments where you're not a mere battery for a giant corporate oligarchy.

These are moments where you break free of the Matrix, and you're a real person in the real world doing real things. Maximize the time in your life where you're doing stuff like that. Even if you're going for a walk or grabbing coffee with a friend, be a person in the world. The Internet isn't real; it's kind of just like pictures on a screen. So stop looking at pictures on a screen so much and go and live the life that you actually want to live.