"Brain rot" has been announced as the Oxford word of the year for 2024, amid concerns over endless social media scrolling and mind-numbing content. More than 37-thousand people voted to help choose the winner from a shortlist of six words drawn up by Oxford University Press, the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary. Brain rot is defined as "the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging." The word's first recorded use was in Henry David Thoreau's book “Walden” in 1854.

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