If you haven’t heard the term, well, perhaps you’ve been spending too much time on activities that do rot your brain, like binge-watching or doomscrolling. Oxford said this week that the phrase “gained new prominence in 2024,” as it was used about 230% more than in 2023.

After a long day, we’ve all been guilty of mindlessly scrolling through our social media feeds, sometimes for hours at a time. This phenomenon has been dubbed "brain rot", and Oxford University Press has chosen the term as its word of the year for 2024.

Oxford University Press has named “brain rot” its word of the year. It's defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state,” especially from consuming too much low-grade online content.