“I have brain rot.”
It’s a phrase I hear repeatedly online, in conversations, and in passing memes shared between friends. Sometimes it’s said with a smirk, sometimes with fatigue. It’s how Gen Z and Gen Alpha describe the strange mental fog that comes after hours of endless scrolling, doom-scrolling, overstimulation, and algorithm-chasing. But beneath the humour, it reveals something deeper: the exhaustion of being plugged in all the time, and the pressure of having the world’s chaos and comedy collapse into a single screen.
These generations aren’t just digital natives. They’re growing up in the age of information overload and artificial intelligence, where data is constant, content never stops, and everything from school assignments to friendships, identities to political awakening happens online. They're the first to be shaped by a world where attention is currency, speed is survival, and even human creativity is outsourced to machines.
And yet, they’re still here. Still navigating. Still evolving.
Yes, there are concerns. Scientific studies have shown that excessive exposure to short-form, reward-heavy content affects the brain’s ability to regulate dopamine, leading to issues like impulsivity, poor concentration, and digital fatigue. A 2023 study published in Scientific Reports found that adolescents who used social media heavily were more likely to show signs of attention difficulties and hyperactivity. While Kenya-specific data on the effects of screen time is still limited, anecdotal observations from educators and mental health professionals suggest growing concern over students’ digital dependency particularly around focus, anxiety, and constant multitasking.
But if you stop there, if all you see is decline, then you're missing the bigger picture.
Because what looks like brain rot on the surface is often just a response to too much input, too fast, with too little time to rest, reflect, or recover. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are living through an era of constant alerts, infinite content, and near-instant access to everything all powered by AI and algorithms optimized to keep them hooked.
They are not only absorbing information faster than any generation before them, they’re also expected to compete with artificial intelligence, adapt to shifting tech, and remain socially conscious while managing mental health in real-time.
But they’re not giving up. They’re remixing, reformatting, and reprogramming themselves to survive it all.
These young people are among the most visually literate, emotionally expressive, and politically aware generations we’ve ever seen. They’re creating nuanced commentary about inequality, gender, identity, and power sometimes in 30-second videos layered with pop culture references, humour, and hard truth. They’re navigating the same tools that overwhelm them, using satire and sacarsm as a shield and humour as a language. And they’re doing it with an understanding that everything is changing fast.
They know what ChatGPT is. They know how to use AI image generators, voice filters, and editing software like second nature. But they’re also deeply aware that behind the tech, there are still systems of bias, power, and control. So while the older generation worries about whether AI will take over the world, Gen Z and Alpha are already figuring out how to live alongside it; how to work with the machine without becoming it.
That’s not apathy. That’s awareness.
Yes, their attention spans may be different. Yes, they multitask more than we’re used to. But maybe this isn’t a breakdown maybe it’s a different blueprint. One that reflects the demands of their time: rapid shifts, visual speed, emotional resilience, and a constant dance with information they didn’t ask for, but have to make sense of anyway.
I don’t see a generation in decline. I see a generation recalibrating in real time filtering out noise, finding new ways to communicate, and building meaning from fragments.
So no, I don’t believe their minds are rotting.
They’re being rewired in the age of algorithms, AI, and attention wars to survive the chaos handed to them.
And if you ask me, that’s not a crisis. That’s evolution.
