Fatigue, impatience and regression. It sounds like the tale of an ancient world. However, it is actually a snapshot of contemporary society according to the words of the year given by the Oxford Dictionary and the Macquarie Dictionary. The former is the historical reference for the evolution of the English language; the latter plays an identical role in Australian English. For Oxford, the symbolic word for 2024 is Brainrot; for the literati of Oceania, on the other hand, the term that summarises the year we are about to leave behind is Enshittification. These two words need to be explained because they encapsulate new meanings linked to current times and the dominance of the digital world, more precisely, of apps and social media.

Infinite scrolling is not good

‘Deterioration of mental state as a result of excessive consumption of trivial or unengaging online content‘. This is the definition of Brainrot, an act that stands for the cause and effect between constant scrolling on platforms and the related human brain rotting from prolonged content consumption in passive mode, almost without awareness. The term is not new and has been used a lot this year, especially on TikTok, as the Oxford University Press committee explained, adding that ‘it has become more popular, increasing in frequency by 250% for millions of words between 2023 and 2024’.

Beyond the numbers, Brainrot might seem like an indictment of social media and even more people’s attitudes. In reality, it describes what can easily be seen every day. You only have to take a walk, catch an underground, get on a plane or walk around a shopping centre to realise how scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok (the list is random; everyone has their favourite) brings us all together. Adults and teenagers, men and women, professionals and workers, we are all increasingly using our smartphones to check what has been posted on social media.

Is it good? Is it bad? I don’t know. It is easy to say that there must be a limit so that we don’t end up victims of the platforms themselves, but there are no specific rules, and everyone is free to act as they wish. The important thing is not to underestimate the situation because the choice of the Oxford Dictionary is a reflection of who we are and what we do. Never forget that.

The life cycle of digital platforms

Along the same lines, conceptually, is the Macquarie Dictionary, although the word choice is a neologism in this case. Coined by Canadian journalist and writer Cory Doctorow, Enshittification indicates the passing of digital platforms and the feelings that pervade the human soul of those who spend a lot of time on the same platforms. The interesting aspect of Doctorow’s theory concerns the life cycle of Instagram, TikTok, Amazon, and other digital giants, which seem destined to remain and scan our days forever. In reality, like humans and animals, digital platforms also have a life parabola, with a beginning, growth and then the inevitable decline. According to this view, the last phase is the one that, to varying degrees, Facebook and X are experiencing, while the other platforms are still in moments of glory in which they tend to attract increasing numbers of onlookers.

Brainrot & Enshittification

To better understand the life cycle, Doctorow speaks of an initial moment in which the platform makes itself useful to people, providing information and opportunities to reach out to others quickly and free of charge. Then there is the moment when growth brings popularity, with the platform attracting people to use it to make a profit or to advertise (we are, after all, in the era of personal branding!). In the next phase, the platform rides users’ desires, beginning to favour the paying over the other, non-paying viewers. This marks the beginning of the downward parabola, which slowly accompanies the platform into oblivion.

As a whole, this process is summarised by the word Enshittification, which represents the ‘gradual deterioration of a service or product caused by a reduction in the quality of the service provided, particularly of an online platform, and as a consequence of the pursuit of profit’. If you think about it, it is the description of Facebook’s path: born as a platform to show content from people who are friends or whom we want to follow, it won over billions of people, but then it changed its algorithms and the content proposed to subscribers to favour advertisers who pay Meta to provide their target audience with tailored ads. So, gradually, many users got tired and stopped using Facebook and migrated to other platforms.

I do not know whether Doctorow’s theory and Enshittification will affect all social media. However, in the long run, even today’s dominant TikTok and Instagram will have to develop new solutions to attract and keep users in their virtual enclosure because nothing is eternal, not even social media.