{"id":75173,"date":"2024-12-10T14:56:20","date_gmt":"2024-12-10T19:56:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?p=75173"},"modified":"2024-12-11T00:09:22","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T05:09:22","slug":"polarization-brain-rot-and-brat-the-2024-words-of-the-year-point-to-the-power-perils-and-ephemeral-nature-of-digital-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/polarization-brain-rot-and-brat-the-2024-words-of-the-year-point-to-the-power-perils-and-ephemeral-nature-of-digital-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Polarization, brain rot and brat \u2013 the 2024 words of the year point to the power, perils and ephemeral nature of digital life"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ever since the\u00a0American Dialect Society<\/a>\u00a0selected a Word of the Year at its conference in 1990, over half a dozen English dictionaries have anointed an annual word or phrase that\u2019s meant to encapsulate the zeitgeist of the prior year.<\/p>\n

In 2003, the publisher of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary\u00a0began bestowing a crown<\/a>. On Dec. 9, 2024, it selected \u201cpolarization\u201d as its word of the year, which joins a list of 2024 winners from other dictionaries that includes \u201cbrat,\u201d \u201cmanifest,\u201d \u201cdemure,\u201d \u201cbrain rot\u201d and \u201censhittification.\u201d<\/p>\n

The terms that are honored are selected in a variety of ways. For example, this year the editors of the Oxford dictionaries allowed the public to cast votes for their favorite from a\u00a0short list of candidates<\/a>. Brain rot emerged victorious.<\/p>\n

Other publishers rely on the acumen of their editors, augmented by measures of popularity such as the number of online searches for a particular term.<\/p>\n

Given the\u00a0steep decline<\/a>\u00a0in the sale of printed reference works, these yearly announcements raise the visibility of the publisher\u2019s wares. But their choices also offer a window into the spirit of the times.<\/p>\n

As a cognitive scientist who studies\u00a0language and communication<\/a>, I saw, in this year\u2019s batch of winners, the myriad ways digital life is influencing English language and culture.<\/p>\n

Hits and misses<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This isn\u2019t the only year in which nearly all the winners fell under a single thematic umbrella. In 2020, epidemic-related terminology \u2013\u00a0Covid<\/a>,\u00a0lockdown<\/a>,\u00a0pandemic<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0quarantine<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 surged to the fore.<\/p>\n

Usually, however, there\u2019s more of a mix, with some selections more prescient and useful than others. In 2005, for example, the New Oxford American Dictionary chose \u201cpodcast<\/a>\u201d \u2013 right before the programming format exploded in popularity.<\/p>\n

More commonly, the celebrated neologisms don\u2019t age well.<\/p>\n

In 2008, the New Oxford American Dictionary selected\u00a0hypermiling<\/a>, or driving to maximize fuel efficiency.\u00a0Permacrisis<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 an ongoing emergency \u2013 got the nod from the Collins Dictionary editors in 2022.<\/p>\n

Neither term gets much use in 2024.<\/p>\n

Manifesting brain rot<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I can already anticipate one of this year\u2019s selections \u2013 \u201cbrat\u201d \u2013 falling by the wayside.<\/p>\n

Just before the 2024 U.S. election, Collins Dictionary\u00a0chose brat<\/a>\u00a0as its word of the year. The publisher defined it as \u201ccharacterized by a confident, independent, and hedonistic attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not coincidentally, it was also the name of a chart-topping album released by Charli XCX in June 2024. In late July, the\u00a0singer tweeted<\/a>, \u201ckamala IS brat,\u201d signaling her support for the Democratic presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

Of course, with Harris\u2019 loss, brat has lost some of its luster.<\/p>\n

Other 2024 words of the year also have social media to thank for their popularity.<\/p>\n

In late November, Cambridge Dictionary\u00a0settled on manifest<\/a>\u00a0as its word of the year, defining it as \u201cto use methods such as visualization and affirmation to help you imagine achieving something you want.\u201d<\/p>\n

The term took off when singer\u00a0Dua Lipa<\/a>\u00a0used it in an interview. But she seems to have picked up on the concept from\u00a0self-help communities on TikTok<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Another word that clearly benefited from social media was \u201cdemure<\/a>,\u201d chosen in late November by Dictionary.com. Although the word dates to the 15th century, it went viral in a\u00a0TikTok<\/a>\u00a0video posted by Jools Lebron in early August. In it, she described appropriate workplace behavior as \u201cvery demure, very mindful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Macquarie Dictionary of Australian English settled on \u201censhittification<\/a>\u201d as its word in early December. Coined by Canadian-British writer Cory Doctorow\u00a0in 2022<\/a>, it refers to the gradual decline in functionality or usability of a specific platform or service \u2014 something that\u00a0Google<\/a>,\u00a0TikTok<\/a>,\u00a0X<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0dating app<\/a>\u00a0users can attest to.<\/p>\n

The Oxford dictionary pick for 2024 \u2014 \u201cbrain rot<\/a>\u201d \u2014 encapsulates the mind-numbing effects of excessive social media use.<\/p>\n

The dictionary maker defined its word of the year as a \u201csupposed deterioration of a person\u2019s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brain rot, however, isn\u2019t a new concept. In the concluding section of \u201cWalden<\/a>,\u201d Henry David Thoreau complained that \u201cbrain rot\u201d prevailed \u201cwidely and fatally<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Digital knives out<\/h4>\n

Merriam-Webster landed on \u201cpolarization\u201d for its Word of the Year. The dictionary maker\u00a0defined the term<\/a>\u00a0as \u201cdivision into two sharply distinct opposites; especially, a state in which the opinions, beliefs, or interests of a group or society no longer range along a continuum but become concentrated at opposing extremes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the U.S., political polarization has a number of causes, ranging from\u00a0gerrymandering to in-group biases<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But social media undoubtedly plays a big role. A 2021 review by the\u00a0Brookings Institution<\/a>\u00a0pointed to \u201cthe relationship between tech platforms and the kind of extreme polarization that can lead to the erosion of democratic values and partisan violence.\u201d\u00a0And journalist Max Fisher has reported on the ways in which<\/a>\u00a0the algorithms deployed by these social media platforms \u201csteer users toward outrage\u201d \u2013 an observation that\u00a0experimental studies<\/a>\u00a0of the phenomenon have supported.<\/p>\n

Despite the polarization of political and social life, the dictionaries, at the very least, have arrived at a consensus: The tech giants are shaping our lives and our language, for better or for worse.<\/p>\n

Author Bio:<\/strong> Roger J. Kreuz is Associate Dean and Professor of Psychology at the University of Memphis<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ever since the\u00a0American Dialect Society\u00a0selected a Word of the Year at its conference in 1990, over half a dozen English dictionaries have anointed an annual word or phrase that\u2019s meant to encapsulate the zeitgeist of the prior year. In 2003, the publisher of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary\u00a0began bestowing a crown. On Dec. 9, 2024, it selected […]\n… learn more→<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5680],"tags":[13404],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-75173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language","tag-word-of-the-year"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPolarization, brain rot and brat \u2013 the 2024 words of the year point to the power, perils and ephemeral nature of digital life - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/polarization-brain-rot-and-brat-the-2024-words-of-the-year-point-to-the-power-perils-and-ephemeral-nature-of-digital-life\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Polarization, brain rot and brat \u2013 the 2024 words of the year point to the power, perils and ephemeral nature of digital life - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Ever since the\u00a0American Dialect Society\u00a0selected a Word of the Year at its conference in 1990, over half a dozen English dictionaries have anointed an annual word or phrase that\u2019s meant to encapsulate the zeitgeist of the prior year. 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