Published : Jan 01, 2025 20:08 IST – 7 MINS READ
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Dear reader,
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world,” wrote Ludwig Wittgenstein in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Students of philosophy know this work as one where the Austrian philosopher looks into the intricate relationship between language, logic, and the world. I thought of this Wittgenstein maxim when I came across three different yet similar slices of news towards the end of 2024. In what can only be described as a masterclass in zeitgeist-capturing, three prestigious linguistic institutions have selected words that, together, describe our contemporary world and its many hues of discontent.
In the first week of December, Oxford University Press (OUP) picked “brain rot” as its word of the year, Merriam-Webster’s chose “polarisation”, and the Australian National University picked a portmanteau word—”Colesworth” (a brilliant fusion of Coles and Woolworths, Australia’s two largest supermarket chains). I feel, quite fittingly, in a Wittgenstein way, that these words paint a rather unflattering portrait of our collective consciousness—or perhaps more accurately, our collective unconsciousness.
The selection of “brain rot”, “Colesworth”, and “polarisation” as words of the year presents us with a fascinating triptych of our contemporary challenges.
If it hadn’t made it to OUP’s list, many of you would not have even heard of brain rot. The term has gained popularity in recent years, mainly among younger generations like Gen Z and Gen Alpha, and refers to the deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state because he or she consumes excessively low-quality or unchallenging online content.
Want some examples of content?
“I Spent 12 Hours Trying to Revive My VCR (It Still Hates Me)”
“Ranking Every Sound from Windows XP – The Ultimate Nostalgia Trip”
“How Good Is Your Attention Span? Focus On This Green Dot”.
Brain rot speaks to a phenomenon that social psychologists have long warned about: the cognitive deterioration that can result from constant exposure to fragmentary information. The term evokes both the personal and social implications of our increasingly digitised existence. Interestingly, a writer who foresaw this crisis way before the age of social media or the internet was my all-time favourite media theorist, Neil Postman. “Our politics, religion, news, athletics, education, and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice. The result is that we are a people on the verge of amusing ourselves to death,” he wrote in the 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death. Just replace “show business” with “internet” or “social media”, and you get the contemporary drift.
Postman’s observation that “Americans no longer talk to each other; they entertain each other” has now evolved into something even more concerning, and this is not just about the US alone; the malice is global. We no longer even properly entertain each other—we merely exchange bite-sized content, our attention spans eroding with each scroll.
Which is why four decades later, as Oxford crowns “brain rot”, Postman’s prophecy reads less like cultural criticism and more like a precise diagnosis. Just look around; you’ll see. Every other person you know with access to a smartphone is exposed to brain rot content and is scrolling away precious time being sucked into this digital black hole, never to return. If you’re still sceptical, surf through your browser’s search history or Instagram activity feed and look for the potential brain rot candidates in your digital consumption—the results will shock you.
The most chilling aspect of reading Amusing Ourselves to Death in 2024 isn’t just its accuracy. It is the realisation that we have far exceeded Postman’s darkest predictions. We haven’t just amused ourselves to death. We have in fact developed a sort of cognitive necrosis that we document and share in real time. In the process, we turn our very decline into content.
I talked about Nicholas Carr in this newsletter some time ago. In The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2010), Carr warned us of the neurological impact of constant digital stimulation. He noted that it rewires our capacity for deep thought and sustained attention.
How does it really manifest in our social, political, or personal lives?
The constant barrage of short-form content and algorithmic feeds has impacted our capacity for sustained contemplation, and there have been early studies now that this process leaves us struggling to understand or properly deal with life’s challenges with the depth they deserve. We once might have spent hours processing a difficult conversation with a parent or thinking through a career decision, but we now find ourselves skimming the surface of our own lives. We often treat important choices with the same cursory attention we give to social media posts.
Our relationships and decisions suffer as we lose our ability to sit with discomfort, untangle nuanced emotions, or hold space for perspectives that don’t fit into easily digestible formats—we’re becoming strangers to the very cognitive tools that make us most human. Also, the loss of deep thinking impairs our ability to make informed decisions, understand parents, friends, and colleagues more deeply, and function effectively in our various social roles as voters, activists, etc.
The Australian coinage “Colesworth” expresses the economic anxieties that have swamped not only Australia but much of the world, both developed and developing. It speaks of consumer ire over rising prices, shrinking wages, and corporate greed. The term came from the grassroots social media campaigns where disgruntled shoppers vented their frustrations over the ballooning grocery bills.
The phenomenon is not new. It is as old as capitalism itself: the widening gap between corporate profitability and consumer well-being. Several studies have shown that prices of food and essential commodities have risen above double digits in 2024 alone in many parts of the world, including India. Meanwhile, reports of record profits by corporate giants have added fuel to the fire, with activists accusing them of price-gouging and more.
“Colesworth” reminds me about consumer movements like the “Boycott Nestlé” campaigns of the 1970s or the anti-Walmart sentiment of the 2000s. But unlike those movements, this one shows a convergence of anger and helplessness. When this happens, societal cohesion begins to fray.
This fraying trust is seen across the globe; it can be seen in the farmer protests in India, the European farmer demonstrations against rising costs and environmental regulations, the rise of cost-of-living protests in the UK, and the demonstrations in Argentina over economic austerity measures.
Meanwhile, “polarisation”—Merriam-Webster’s choice—acts as both diagnosis and prognosis of our current sociopolitical condition. The term’s selection shows an acknowledgement of how ideological division has become a social condition affecting everything from family relationships to workplace relations.
The term itself originates from physics. There, it described the alignment of waves in a single direction. By the mid-20th century, it entered the social lexicon to describe divided societies, especially during the Cold War. In 2024, polarisation is no longer confined to politics. Social media creates more and more echo chambers, pushing people further into ideological silos. And, as we know now, from political schisms to cultural battles. Polarisation defines not just how we disagree but how we live, vote, interact, and even fall in love.
In sum, it seems quite Freudian that these three words, picked by three different institutions, help us understand and explain our world.
But what’s the way forward? One word: Resistance. I would like to look at these words as not just descriptors but as catalysts for change, however cliched that might sound. They force us to examine our relationship with information consumption, economic systems, and political discourse. They challenge us to imagine alternatives.
Any corrective approach would demand that we resist the very phenomena these words describe: the deterioration of careful thought, the acceptance of economic injustice, and the comfort of ideological isolation. We must be aware of this and teach our fellow beings to be aware, alert, and act upon it.
So, let us commit. To nurturing our cognitive health through mindful consumption of information (where supporting the work done by publications like Frontline matters). By supporting economic systems that understand and respect human needs. And to build bridges across ideological divides (in the family and beyond).
In 2025 and beyond, may we work toward a vocabulary that speaks not just of our challenges but of our victories in overcoming them. Let us choose and create words that point toward healing, understanding, and collective progress. Let us strive for a society where awareness wins over apathy, compassion over division, and insight over distraction. Here’s to building a life—and a world—anchored in these principles.
Wishing you a meaningful 2025!
For Frontline,
Jinoy Jose P.
We hope you’ve been enjoying our newsletters featuring a selection of articles that we believe will be of interest to a cross-section of our readers. Tell us if you like what you read. And also, what you don’t like! Mail us at frontline@thehindu.co.in
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