THE HOLY POST

Pope Francis Says Too Much Online Scrolling Causes ‘Brain Rot’

The pontiff invoked a phrase that the Oxford Dictionary chose as its word of the year for 2024.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church calls on his followers to abstain from a lot. Pope Francis’ latest request: stop scrolling. The Vatican head, 88, told an audience at the Jubilee of the World of Communications in Rome at the weekend that too much social media should be avoided because it causes “brain rot”—or putrefazione cerebrale in the more elegant Italian. “Let’s put respect for the highest and noblest part of our humanity back in the center of our hearts, let’s avoid filling it with what rots and makes it rot,” he told an audience of thousands of writers and journalists. “The choices of each of us count, for example, in expelling that ‘brain rot’ caused by the addiction to continuous scrolling on social media, defined by the Oxford Dictionary as the word of the year.” The pontiff added that the “cure for this disease” is education, especially for young people to ensure they are equipped with media literacy and critical thinking beyond the pull of constantly refreshing feeds. Lent, for what it’s worth, starts in little more than five weeks.