Photo Credit: Freepik&nbsp;
The Oxford word of the year for 2024 is "brain rot," which comes amid worries over the mind-numbing effect of continuous social media scrolling.
Oxford University Press, the publisher of the Oxford English Dictionary, shortlisted six words that reflect the moods and conversations that have helped to shape the past year, and more than 37,000 individuals voted to select the winning word.&nbsp;
The five unsuccessful shortlisted words included &ldquo;demure&rdquo;, which became quite popular due to a social media trend, &ldquo;dynamic pricing&rdquo;, where the price of a product or service varies to reflect demand, &ldquo;lore&rdquo;, a body of facts and background information related to someone or something;&nbsp;&ldquo;romantasy&rdquo;, a fiction genre combining romance and fantasy; and&nbsp;&ldquo;slop&rdquo;, low-quality content online generated using artificial intelligence.&nbsp; .
According to Oxford, "Brain Rot" is defined as &ldquo;the supposed deterioration of a person&rsquo;s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration&rdquo;.
Oxford explained that the reason why it was crowned word of the year was, "Our experts noticed that &lsquo;brain rot&rsquo; gained new prominence this year as a term used to capture concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low-quality online content, especially on social media. The term increased in usage frequency by 230% between 2023 and 2024".&nbsp;
While the term rose to prominence lately, its origins go back to 1854, when it was first used in&nbsp;Henry David Thoreau&rsquo;s book "Walden": &ldquo;While England endeavours to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot &ndash; which prevails so much more widely and fatally?&rdquo;.

On Air Now

Non-Stop Music

You May like

Schedule

Non-Stop Music