Childhood Brainrot: Digital Content Consumption, Attention, and Algorithmic Culture in Childhood
Childhood Brainrot: Digital Content Consumption, Attention, and Algorithmic Culture in Childhood A critical analysis of childhood brainrot: attention, digital overstimulation, algorithmic culture, generational gaps, and the educational response to digital consumption. Naming the Phenomenon in Order to Think It In recent years, the term brainrot has emerged from the margins of youth digital culture to describe—often with irony and exaggeration—a subjective sense of mental saturation produced by intensive consumption of short, repetitive, and highly stimulating digital content. Although the concept originated in informal online language, its rapid circulation among adolescents and young adults signals more than a passing meme: it points to a shared experience of cognitive fatigue, attentional fragmentation, and constant mental noise. When this phenomenon is applied to childhood, the discussion acquires a deeper social, educational, and ethical dimension. Speaking of ch...