Author: Masoud Kianpour, Senior Research Fellow, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program, Toronto Metropolitan University

I teach a course on the relationship between social media and society at Durham College. As part of their assessments, I ask my students to reflect on their social media use. A recurring theme is that they cannot be separated from their smartphones. Many admit to spending significant time daily on social media watching short videos without a clear purpose and as a way to procrastinate on more productive activities. There is a term for this kind of behaviour and its impact on mental health, one that was recently named Oxford Word of the Year 2024: “brain rot” — the…