Table of Contents
- What is brain rot?
- 3 triggers of brain rot for UX designers
- How brain rot destroys UX designer’s career
- Brain rot in the age of AI: It gets worse
- How I'm protecting my brain…from brain rot
- 1. Physical fitness is non-negotiable
- 2. Sleep tracking
- 3. Intentional content consumption
- But I secretly love "brain rot" 👀
- Why this isn't (actually) brain rot
- The bottom line
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What is brain rot?
Brain rot refers to cognitive decline and mental exhaustion experienced by individuals, particularly adolescents and young adults, due to excessive exposure to low-quality online materials, especially on social media.
For UX designers, here's what it looks like: You open Figma to work on that redesign. But first, you check Instagram "real quick." One hour later, you've watched 47 Reels, your brain feels like mush, and you can't remember what user problem you were trying to solve.
That's brain rot in action.
The word literally won the Oxford Word of the Year in 2024, which tells you how real this has become.
In this article, I'll show you the three ways brain rot happens, how it's destroying your UX design career, and what I do to protect my brain from it (that you can steal).
3 triggers of brain rot for UX designers
Now let’s dig into the science behind brain rot:
ㅤ | Doomscrolling | Zombie Scrolling | Digital Addiction |
Core emotion | Fear and anxiety
Your brain’s survival system kicks in. | Numbness and boredom
Your brain’s escape system activates. | Craving and anticipation
Your brain’s reward system takes over. |
How it shows up for UX Designers | You read every design trend, hot take, or industry drama thread, convinced it’ll help you “stay informed.” Instead, you spiral into comparison and stress. | You scroll Dribbble or TikTok for “inspiration” but end up lost in content you don’t even remember. It feels like relaxing but it’s draining your focus. | You keep refreshing Slack, LinkedIn, and email, hoping for a dopamine hit from likes, comments, or client messages. |
Why it happens | You’re trying to regain control in a chaotic industry. (“If I keep up with everything, I won’t fall behind.”) | You’re trying to disconnect from design fatigue. (“My brain needs a break.”) | You’re chasing validation and novelty. (“Maybe that post I wrote got traction.”) |
Brain chemicals | Cortisol + Adrenaline — stress hormones that keep you alert and on edge. | Low, steady Dopamine drips — mild stimulation without satisfaction. | High Dopamine spikes — reward circuits hijacked, just like in gambling or gaming. |
Cognitive pattern | Overactivation of the amygdala and threat circuits — your brain thinks every design trend or AI update is a personal threat. | Underactivation of the prefrontal cortex — your decision-making and attention systems go offline. | Overactivation of the nucleus accumbens — your brain prioritizes instant rewards over long-term growth. |
Emotional intent | To feel prepared, relevant, and informed. | To rest and escape the cognitive load of constant design work. | To feel appreciated, visible, or in control. |
Design consequences | You overthink every decision and second-guess your design direction. | You lose your “flow” state and stop producing original work. | You rely on metrics, validation, and engagement over actual impact. |
Feels like | “Everyone’s ahead of me — I need to catch up.” | “I’ve been scrolling for an hour, but I still feel empty.” | “I’ll just check one more notification…” |
Type of brain rot | Overstimulation
↳ too much noise, no clarity. | Under-engagement
↳ mental autopilot, no intention. | Addictive conditioning
↳ compulsive behavior, no control. |
How brain rot destroys UX designer’s career
Brain rot isn't just ruining your free time; it's destroying the skills you need for your job.
- You become validation-dependent. Instead of solving user problems, you design for Dribbble likes. You optimize for awards, not outcomes.
- Impulsivity ruins your process. Good design requires patience. Testing. Iteration. Digital addiction makes you want instant results and constant novelty.
- Your creative confidence collapses. When your dopamine system is hijacked by social media, real creative work (which has delayed gratification) feels unrewarding. You'd rather refresh LinkedIn than finish that research deck.
- Decision-making deteriorates. Reduced inhibitory control means you make reactive design choices instead of strategic ones. You chase every new design trend instead of solving actual problems.
You're training your brain to need constant external validation. That's the opposite of what great designers need: internal conviction and the ability to work through uncertainty.
Brain rot in the age of AI: It gets worse
Research also shows that even AI models trained on "brain rot" content experience cognitive decline: thought-skipping, truncated reasoning chains, and even nudges toward psychopathy and narcissism.
“AI can suffer “brain rot” too - and the damage may not be reversible.
A new study from Texas A&M, UT Austin, and Purdue finds that large language models trained on viral, low-quality social content begin to lose their reasoning skills and long-term understanding over time.
The models were fed streams of short, attention-grabbing posts from X, and their performance steadily declined. They skipped reasoning steps, produced less coherent answers, and even showed higher levels of traits researchers compared to narcissism and psychopathy.
Even after retraining with higher-quality human-written text, the models never fully recovered. The researchers say this shows the effects of “brain rot” are deeply internalized and can’t be easily fixed through standard fine-tuning.”
(*Source: @future tech)
We're increasingly relying on these same AI tools, such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, and 100 other tools to help us design.
If the AI's reasoning is degraded by brain-rot content, and your reasoning is degraded by the same content, you're creating a feedback loop of mediocrity.
Brain-rotted designer → uses brain-rotted AI → produces shallow design → contributes to more brain-rotted content.
The designers who survive the AI age will be the ones who can do what AI can't: think deeply, recognise patterns, and exhibit genuine human empathy. Brain rot takes away exactly those advantages.
If garbage content ruins an AI's "brain," what's it doing to yours?
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How I'm protecting my brain…from brain rot
I design digital experiences for a living… but the digital world was starting to design me.
I’ve learned it the hard way! So, I decided to treat my brain the same way I treat a design problem: understand the pain points, test solutions, and iterate.
Here’s what I changed, and what’s working for me:
1. Physical fitness is non-negotiable
I started going to the gym again, but this time I got a personal trainer. Accountability matters. I also picked up pickleball, using social pressure to keep me consistent and make it fun.
Why exercises matter for designers:
Ok, I’m not gonna bore you with all the “why exercise is sooo good for humans” talk. There’ve been hundreds of studies, and you can Google them in 2 seconds.
Bottom line: Exercise makes you a better designer. Better focus. Better problem-solving. Better creative thinking. It’s not just about health, it’s about performance, both mental and creative.
2. Sleep tracking
I bought a smart ring that tracks my sleep (and in case you’re wondering, it’s Ultrahuman). The high score motivation is real, and it's working.
Getting good sleep seemed to add to cognitive improvement from exercise. Sleep isn't just rest; it's when the brain consolidates memory and clears out metabolic waste.
The UX insight: We design gamification systems for users all the time—streaks, badges, points. Why not use those same psychological triggers on ourselves?
For designers, sleep directly impacts:
- Pattern recognition (crucial for information architecture)
- Creative problem-solving (your brain processes solutions while you sleep)
- Emotional regulation (needed for stakeholder management and critique sessions)
You wouldn't ship a product without testing. Don't ship your brain to work without proper rest.
3. Intentional content consumption
About 70% of what I consume is educational: business, economy, sales, creator content, brand strategy. This helps me stay sharp, learning, thinking, and unlocking unknown unknowns.
Think of it as designing your information diet: Just like we advocate for content strategy and information hierarchy in our products, we need the same rigour in what we consume.
But here's the warning: Overloading your brain with information, even educational content, can leave you mentally drained and less productive.
Too much consuming leads to not enough doing. Too much inspiration leads to paralysis. Too many case studies and you forget to ship your own work.
So balance matters. Input vs. output ratio is a design constraint for your life.
➡️ Why Great UX Designers Read Beyond Design Content:
But I secretly love "brain rot" 👀
Here's my confession: I have guilty pleasures. And I'm not giving them up.
I love strategy games, used to play them, now I watch others play: Cities Skylines, Rust (a survival shooter), and my new obsession Town to City (the art and music are incredible).
I've been watching tons of pickleball matches. I listen to comedy podcasts that discuss nothing important but make me laugh. I fall down YouTube rabbit holes and find weird niche creators: like that Vietnamese kid in the US who just broke every Tetris world record (and I’m proud of that kid!)
Why this isn't (actually) brain rot
The algorithm isn't in control. I am. The difference: intentionality.
The crucial component of zombie scrolling is the lack of intentionality or motive.
When I watch strategy games, I'm engaged. I'm thinking about build orders, resource management, player decisions. When I find niche creators, I'm learning about subcultures, human achievement, creativity.
I'm not passively consuming rage bait or misinformation. I'm choosing what I watch, I'm engaged with it, and I can stop when I want to.
The UX parallel: This is like the difference between a user intentionally exploring your product vs. getting trapped in a dark pattern loop. Agency matters. Choice matters. User control matters.
If we design for user agency in our products, we need to practice it in our own digital lives.
The bottom line
Brain rot is real.
Excessive screen time is associated with lowered self-esteem, increased mental health issues and addictions, slowed learning, impaired concentration, memory issues, and increased risk of premature cognitive decline.
But the solution isn't to abandon the internet entirely. As designers, we can't, our careers depend on being digital-first. You can enjoy the internet without letting it destroy your brain. You just need to be deliberate about it.
Last but not least, here’s your professional challenge: If we understand how these systems work, if we know the dark patterns, the engagement loops, the psychological triggers, then we have a responsibility to design better.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a pickleball game (and a dopamine detox) to get to 👋
P.S. What are you doing to protect your brain? And more importantly, what are you designing that protects your users' brains?
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