You may have heard that the Oxford dictionary’s “word of the year” this year was “brain rot.”
I found that interesting for two reasons. The first is that it is clearly two words. The second is that unlike prior words of the year — like 2013’s “selfie” or last year’s “rizz” — “brain rot” is neither new nor changed from its original intended meaning. Its first use was recorded in 1854 and said to be “indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort” — which, well, yeah.
Since the selection for Oxford’s yearly word is done by public poll, this leads me to my first prediction in this column of observations for tech in 2025: The brain rot economy will show signs of weakness as people grow more wary of what is being served up to them by algorithms as they scroll endlessly. In the past year, the flood of AI slop content has made looking at Facebook even more pointless — and eyeballs will go elsewhere.
Along the same lines, we can expect more anti-social media and anti-smartphone legislation from governments and local authorities around the world following the drastic action taken by Australia to ban users younger than 16 from social media and more and more bans on smartphones in US schools. Momentum is growing, and I expect more sweeping directives will follow — along with more spirited debate over whether such bans are justified or effective.
The biggest jolt to the social media landscape could come from a US ban on TikTok. The January 19 deadline for its divestiture is fast-approaching, but before then, on January 10, the Supreme Court will hear arguments from each side — TikTok and the Justice Department — on the whether the ban is constitutional. Many legal observers have deemed it unlikely the court will overturn the lower court’s ruling, which sided with the government on its somewhat vague concerns of national security. But in recent days the pendulum has shown signs of a swing. Trump, after weeks of will-he, won’t-he, has sought to pause the law until he is in office. A delay would allow “breathing space for the court to consider the questions on a more measured schedule,” he argued in an amicus brief. Many on the left and right agree with him.
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