Are we getting stupider?

Brain rot is everywhere. Our feeds are filled with slop, misinformation is ubiquitous, and AI is increasingly doing our thinking for us. 

And the crisis goes even deeper: Math and reading scores are falling, trust in science has been declining, and our attention spans are shrinking. Some even say we’re in a Golden Age of Stupidity.

But all is not lost when it comes to matters of the mind — at least, according to Andrew Budson, a neurologist at Boston University who specializes in and researches memory disorders. He says there’s definitely a way to reclaim our brains, and he talks all about it on the latest episode of Explain It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast.

Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. You can listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you’d like to submit a question, send an email to askvox@vox.com or call 1-800-618-8545.

How does our memory work?

Once we are able to pay attention to something, it then gets stored by a structure that’s deep in our temporal lobe called the hippocampus. The hippocampus actually takes the separate sights and sounds and smells and thoughts and feelings that you’re having at that instant, and it binds them all together into a coherent hole. 

This bound representation is the representation of your memory. It then gets tagged with an index that will allow you to retrieve that information later.

Is it like a filing cabinet? 

Yeah, it’s a little bit like a file cabinet, but the twist is that the files are just the blueprints or the schematic of the memory. What your brain needs to do is to take this blueprint and very actively recreate the memory. It needs to actively recreate all the details that are going on.

Another part of your brain called the frontal lobes get involved. The frontal lobes are right behind your forehead, and they are like the contractor that is in charge of this active construction. The frontal lobes are like, “Hey, we need more of this, and we got to put these things together, and I don’t think that’s quite right. Let’s look for something else that’s a better match.” The frontal lobes are your quality control in addition to your contractor to sort of get all of these pieces working together.

I want to zoom in closer on our brains and how we learn things. Biologically, what allows us to learn and retain new ideas?

It’s one of the coolest things: neuroplasticity. 

Neuroplasticity is essentially the concept that our brains are elastic, or that they’re able to make new connections over time. Memories are a strengthening of existing connections in the brain between one neuron and another. They’re also the creation of new connections between neurons in the brain. 

What happens when we sleep is the brain figures out, “Okay, this strengthening of connections here, this is an important memory, so we’re going to strengthen that even further,” or “We’re going to grow new connections.” So those connections become permanent. 

One of the really cool things about neuroplasticity is how it’s something that people can use throughout their lives. When I went to medical school, I was told that it was really only babies and children that had this sort of neuroplasticity available to them. But we now know that neuroplasticity is going on throughout the lifespan, including in people as old as me and older.

It sounds like our brains are a muscle like any other. And so, is it one of those “use it or lose it” type situations?

That is very true. There have been studies that have looked at what happens when people get socially isolated. Our brains evolved for social interactions. Our math teachers might think it’s to do arithmetic in our heads, but they’re wrong. That’s not what our brain is for. So when you’re talking to your friend next to you in the math class, that is actually what our brains are for. 

People who become socially isolated, their brains actually shrink, even if they don’t have a disorder, and people who are socially isolated are at increased risk of developing dementia.

So, if your brain is a muscle, does that mean we can train it to be smarter?

Absolutely; we totally can. The key is to train with the most direct example as you possibly can. What I mean by that is there are a lot of companies that are out there, many of whom are working very hard with lots of scientists to try to develop brain training games that are going to really help us. But so far what the studies have proven is that if you spend a lot of time with these brain training games, you get better at the brain training games. It does not translate into everyday life. 

If you want to get better at doing something like remembering French vocabulary words, you can get better by developing a routine or a program as to how you’re going to work on studying the vocabulary words, and how you’re going to incorporate it into your life. We all can improve on almost anything our brain does, but the trick is to work on practicing that. 

“We all can improve on almost anything our brain does, but the trick is to work on practicing that.”

For example, a lot of people have trouble remembering names, and you can absolutely train yourself to have an easier time remembering someone’s name when you first meet them at a cocktail party if you practice it.

There’s all this talk about how we’re not as smart as we used to be. You look at a lot of brains. How are we stacking up these days?

I do think that there are some reasons that we may not be as smart today as we used to be. I think the average person’s ability, for example, to navigate from one place to another has been dramatically reduced by the use of Google Maps and other programs like that. The part of our brain that’s involved in navigation does actually shrink for many people. 

The one other thing I’d like to mention, because it was actually studied, is that people who spend more than an hour a day watching TV actually end up getting less smart over time. If you’re watching mindless television, it’s going to rot your brain. And what do I mean by that? It’s going to make your brain smaller. You’re not using it. 

Don’t forget, the thing that our brains evolve for is to have social interactions. So, I don’t want people to go out and spend their time in a windowless room studying math texts. What I want people to do is to get out there in life, interact with people. That’s how to use your brains the best.

Okay, so what I’m hearing is maybe don’t binge all those episodes of The Traitors back to back; in between, maybe go hang out with some friends.

Absolutely. Or if you watch television with friends, and you really make it a social event, and you’re interacting with people, I think it’s different than if you’re watching it by yourself.