Hot and Unbothered
How to Un-Rot Your Brain — The Algorithm Doesn’t Want You to Hear This
30 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is brain rot and how does it affect our thinking?
Are you thinking for yourself or are you thinking the way that your phone has conditioned you to think? That the people you see online, that the accounts and posts you scroll past have hardwired your brain to think and to move and to need this constant dopamine rush and this constant need for validation or the constant need for an influx and overload of information?
Because I know that that is not how you want to think.
So if you want to learn how to actually un-rot your brain and get your own way of thinking back, your own perceptions, your own thoughts, your own beliefs, not ones of other people, not ones on your phone, this is the podcast for you. Welcome to today's episode of Hot and Unbothered. Hello beautiful people and welcome back to my podcast.
If you're new here, my name is Bri and I am your host of Hot and Unbothered. I am proud of you for clicking on this video because if you did, it shows that you have interest in what matters, not just how to instantly glow up, but actually how to fix your brain and your way of thinking. And if you're anything like me, you are very at terms with the fact that that it's scary.
The change that has happened in our brain, in our attention spans, in our morals, due to things that we see online, due to the new standards of the world that we somehow have shifted to, it's not normal. It's not healthy and it's not something that we have to sit here and be okay with.
You shouldn't be just like in a state of acceptance that you no longer can remember things the way that you used to. You no longer can even tell yourself what videos you scrolled past for the past five videos ago. It's actually insane the way that we are becoming robotic. And I know everyone's always like talked about, oh, what if robots and AI take over the world? But also we are just...
facilitating that process because we are becoming robotic. We are becoming so manageable because our brains have stopped moving. The critical thinking, the cognizance, the discernment, it's all leaving us and it's because we have found something that we thought was a tool And now it's become an identity. And I did do an episode on how to stop letting your phone take over your life.
So this is going to be along the same vibe, but not just specifically about your phone and your screen, but how to un-rot your brain. And I know brain rot...
is such a brain rot term in itself but i'm not talking about just that language and just the term brain rot and the language that people use based off of what they find on social media but the actual fact that our brains are deteriorating our health is declining our cognitive function is just not what it used to be and not what it should be and there are scientific facts in this episode that will prove that and that will prove what caused it and it will prove what we can do going forward
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Chapter 2: How does technology raise cortisol levels even when not in use?
And I think that just goes to show that even when we know we shouldn't be doing something, if our brain is used to it, it will execute the function. So that's why it's so important that we are going to dig deep today and figure out what is it?
With our brains now, what has happened in result of our phones, in result of the world that we live in, where we have lost our own way of thinking, where we have lost self-control over our bodies, over our habits, over our screens, over something that was meant to be a tool that we are now a slave of. It's quite literally ridiculous, so I have a lot to talk about today.
I'm gonna start by sharing this quote by Katherine Price's book, The Power of Fun, and it just sticks out to me so much. Just as it's possible to build up tolerance to a drug, the more accustomed your brain gets to receiving these regular hits from your devices, the more dopamine it will take to satisfy these cravings, and the more dependent on your devices you'll become.
Formally enjoyable activities like listening to music or hanging out with a friend feel less stimulating and satisfying than the rapid-fire jolts of fake fun that you get from checking social media again. David Greenfield said this is one of the worst parts of tech addiction. It dulls reality. We are living in a dulled reality because of this tool that we think enhances it.
Because we see everyone else's embellished realities, so our own feels dulled. And I'm going to be talking about different things I did than in last episode about the phone taking your life back and stuff. We're going to dive into more of the mental side of it and the habitual side and how we are going to fix it now and the scientific evidence behind why we are so hooked and how we can fix it.
But it's so true. Our brain has become so accustomed to the short-term gratification. It's become so accustomed to instant information. It's become so accustomed to comparison and jealousy and all these negative feelings that
are now deeply embedded into our veins and why it feels so chaotic why it feels so noisy is because we are literally opening a bunch of tabs in our brain when you have too many tabs open on your computer what happens it starts working slower. It gets nearly broken because a computer is not meant to have thousands and thousands of tabs and information going at once.
No matter how strong you think your computer is, the truth is if you're clicking a bunch of tabs open instant, second after second, it's going to slow down. What do you think is happening in your brain? The fact that we can jump from task to task from app to app, from profile to profile, from post to post. You're opening all these tabs. You're clicking them open in your brain.
And the thing is, we are never shutting them because social media is designed to be never ending. So you will never feel satisfied. No task on your phone will ever feel completed because there is no finish line. There is no end. So that's why your brain wants more and more and you get these dopamine hits every and you crave more and more.
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Chapter 3: What role does dopamine play in our tech addiction?
But somehow, the mess, the rush, the toxicity, it keeps you coming back and wanting more. That is the relationship that almost every single one of us, yes you, have with your phone. And I just need you to be careful with what you consume because we have given up total agency over our lives, over our minds, over our bodies.
to our phone meaning that we've surrendered the entire aspect of decision to our phone we no longer hold the power because when we are scrolling we don't decide we don't decide what comes next we don't decide what we're going to click on we can hardly even decide if we're going to keep scrolling because it's just such a habitual task and movement we have given up agency we have given up our power to like i said in our last episode quite literally a block of batteries
Your phone is literally just batteries and wires, yet somehow it has more strength and control over the situation than you do. We are in a state of constant compliance with our phones, meaning we don't question it. We don't do anything to go against it. We don't do anything to alter the process. We just do what it says and we just accept whatever it puts right in front of us.
whatever it is feeding us, we are eating it up. Even if it's trash, we will say, yum, that's delicious. And we will come back and ask for seconds. And then we will regurgitate it and say it right back and just keep being in this constant cycle of taking in information and repeating it and taking information and repeating it and asking for more and wanting more. And it never, ever ends.
Never scroll without conscious thoughts. The algorithm is quite literally designed to to keep you stuck let me actually read you the definition of algorithm the algorithm is a set of rules and machine learning models that determines what content users see in their feed the algorithm's goal is to personalize the user's experience by showing content that's most relevant to each user
In other words, it's designed to only feed you what you want to hear and only feed you what you want to see, meaning you will never feel wrong when you are scrolling on social media. No one gets you like your algorithm does. No one knows your humor, your taste, or your style like your algorithm does.
Your good trusty friend that isn't even real and it's actually a bunch of robots who are spying you and tracking your every mood and collecting data on you and watching everything you are doing to make sure it is feeding you things that will keep you stuck. And you might be asking why? Because that is how social media companies make money. They keep you stuck.
Why do you think TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, they send out multiple notifications and every single day, things that don't even matter. Ones like this person also commented on this person's post. This person repost something like, girl, I don't care. We don't care about these things. Yet social media companies want to trigger that response in us being like, oh, I got a check.
Every single time you open the app, they are getting paid. Every single extra minute in scroll that you are scrolling on this app, they are making more money off of you. So you are not getting unbiased content. Things used to be chronological. It used to be random. The explore page actually did used to be for exploring and it would show you other people's accounts.
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Chapter 4: How does social media dull our ability to experience joy?
They're probably trying to stay off of it because they know it's intentionally bad and addictive for you. It's not to say that things that are addictive don't feel good. That's why they're addicting. We think that they're going to do something for us that is going to fulfill some sort of need, fill some sort of gap for us. And another Catherine Price quote says, what most of us don't realize is
is that our phones are preventing remembering the things we experience too. The process of transferring short-term memory into long-term storage requires physical changes in our brain, more specifically the creation of proteins, which are disrupted by distraction. And what is your phone if not a distraction first and foremost? Your phone is meant to distract you from the things of life.
And at first it starts like something fun like, oh, I'm stressed. Let me watch a funny video on my phone. But then it turns into like, oh my gosh, I have these tasks that I need to do. They're feeling really daunting. I don't want to do them. Let me distract myself with my phone. And then it becomes to a point of not even cognizant. distraction.
Meaning you aren't even aware that it is the biggest distraction in your life and next thing you know three hours have passed. None of the work that you needed to get done has gotten done. You feel terrible about yourself. You feel terrible about the work that you need to get done. You're so stressed. You're so overwhelmed because you got distracted.
Not even to mention the amount of information overload that your phone gives us. I definitely tapped into this more in our last episode as well so I won't do it too much here but just know this. We were never meant to to have this much information. I am not saying that humans are not meant to be knowledgeable or wise, but it is nothing that we have come up with on ourself, right?
If you become smart, you want it to be because you learned it, you studied it, you understand it. But now we're just getting information and we're feeling like we know all this in a bag of chips. When in reality, like we're just asking chat GPT and it's not actually telling us why we're not actually making sense out of anything. We're seeing news on our for you page.
We're seeing things on our screens that we don't even know if they're real or AI. We can't even decipher the difference between the two. We were never meant to. to take in such a high volume of information at once, of course your brain is going to feel overloaded.
Of course you are going to feel burnt out and emotionally and physically and mentally exhausted from looking and taking in all this information in one day. You are not meant to see a video of someone dying or sick or something terrible going on in our political, hateful world and then the next video be like a funny cat video. That can't be good for you.
I'm no therapist, I'm no expert, but I do know that cannot be good for you. This quote says that information overload occurs when the flow and amount of information is too much for our brains to process. Bombardment can lead to confusion, indecisiveness, stress, and eventually mental fatigue. Deciding what is worth our attention becomes highly difficult in this flood.
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Chapter 5: What are the effects of information overload on our cognitive function?
Alter your entire day. Alter your entire mood. It's just not fair to you. Your brain is such a beautiful creation and we were given these emotions and depth and wisdom by God and it's like, we are just going to give that up? We're just going to surrender that because we want to watch our funny little videos online.
Because what we're scrolling past is more valuable to us than our actual critical thinking and cognitive function and our skills. I just don't think that's right. So now that we've covered our basis as to why, how, and how bad it is we are so addicted to our phones, I want to dive into how we are going to actively combat this addiction, this doom scroll cycle, and things we can...
Actionably start today not things that are just gonna shift your perspective but actual practices as well I actually took an amazing Skillshare class that opened my mind so much to different perspectives as to how to kind of stop our phone addiction and outroot this in our lives it's called social media and phone addiction why you are addicted and how to reclaim your focus and I
So many of the things I'm about to share and quotes that I have shared are things that I picked up from this class. So I highly suggest you guys check it out if you have the time. A huge tool I took from this class is that you need to ask yourself these three questions the next time you find yourself wanting to scroll. And that is what for, why now, and what else? What for?
Number one, why are you going on your phone?
what for next time you pick it up or you want to open the app ask yourself what am i doing this for is it for pure entertainment or is it because i actually want information because i want to learn something or because i need to do something productive 90 of the time it is going to be for entertainment or 90 of the time you actually might not even know the answer to the first question what for a lot of the times we pick up the phone and we don't even know what we're going on it for
We do it without reason. We do it out of habit. So I challenge you guys to actually at least, at the very bare minimum, at least know what you are going on your phone for. Don't do it just out of habit just because you are hardwired to pick up your phone. At least have some sort of reason or prompting behind it, okay? That's number one, what for? Next is why now? Why do you have to do it now?
Is it because notification prompted you to and you're like a little dog with a squeaky toy and you just can't resist it? Or is it because you're bored? Or is it that you are avoiding doing a certain task? Learning why we go on our phone in certain moments really can help us to break down what it is that is prompting us to go on our phone.
So maybe it's you want distraction, maybe it's boredom, maybe it's out of procrastination. Oftentimes there is something that's indicating that we are going to go on our phone. So figure out, why do I go on my phone?
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Chapter 6: How does comparison on social media impact our self-esteem?
And that's because I gave myself the time to think of ideas and brainstorm them and come to my own conclusions in my free time, opposed to only just watching other people live their life.
Because the thing is, you can be a dreamer, but you can also spend all of your time watching other people execute their dreams while you are just sitting there in complacency or just sitting there in stagnance when you really could be making your own dreams come true instead of watching it happen for others. And don't get me wrong, I think it is great to cheer others on.
I think it's great to take in, you know, new information and to intake a certain healthy amount of positive content and long form content, especially. Okay, our brains and our attention spans need to practice with longer form content. If you cannot outroot your screens immediately, which I don't blame you because screens can be such tools.
And I hope that you utilize this episode as a tool instead of something that you're just using to pass time and And I think that's a huge difference that you can ask yourself in your what for questioning, right? Am I doing it because I need entertainment or am I doing it because I want information? And if you are using this as information, I think that is still productive.
So I challenge you to focus on intaking more long form content because the truth is a lot of us cannot even sit through a three minute TikTok video or a one minute TikTok video if the person is talking that slow. And why do you think TikTok and Instagram implemented the little fast forward feature?
Because they know that our little tiny brains are shrinking down so much and our attention spans are becoming so compacted that we can't even watch someone speak at regular speed. So you know what? Like, I'm not going to make this video all choppy and quick and cute.
Like, yes, I could hook you from the very beginning and I could take out every single breath that I take within words, but I'm like...
i don't want to condition all of our brains to be that way like we are conditioned to be like especially as a content creator i know that the faster i talk and the more things i talk about in a short period of time i know that will make my content perform better but i'm not trying to just like get my bang for my buck and just like go out and entertain and hook people and take their brains and take their money or whatever like i
I genuinely want your brains to be healthy and good and I want you to be able to get your attention spans to a healthy place, to intake information and not just hear it, but to actually retain it. And if my bank account takes a hit because of that, so be it, but I'm so done with like
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Chapter 7: What actionable steps can we take to reclaim our focus?
Not, I need to open these apps. I need to check my phone. To, I have a choice. At least tell yourself, I have a choice. And even if it's just one time, you are setting that boundary for yourself and you're telling yourself, no, I am not going to respond to that urge. That is just one baby step and that's a great strong step to beginning your journey of breaking your phone addiction.
And there are so many ways you can do this. I love...
going on do not disturb okay i talked about in my last phone based episode two weeks ago i talked about how my friend offered the idea of yeah no i don't want my phone to tell me when to go on it and that just totally did it for me and i'm online and i'm on do not disturb now 90 of the time and i'm like sorry if you can't reach me but i want to decide when i'm going to go on my phone my phone is not going to tell me when i want to go on my phone i will decide that thank you very much another thing that i've had done for actually years and years and years is
And it makes me feel bad if I don't respond to someone or if I don't follow someone back because I never saw it. I have all of my social media notifications off. TikTok, Instagram, they are off, meaning my phone will not buzz if someone comments or likes my photo or if they follow me or if I get a DM. Because I'm like, TikTok especially is off completely because that was, I guess, for a while.
It was especially newer at the time. That was my main vice app. TikTok is off entirely. I do not get a single TikTok pop up on my screen because like I that's what they want. Number one is they want you to be so hooked where you hear that little ding on your phone and you can't help but open it because they want you to open your app.
And if you don't open your app long enough, you will notice they will start sending you more notifications. which is absolutely crazy, but I have tried it and I can verify that that is true. Even Snapchat does that. If you don't open Snapchat for a while, they'll notify you that someone posted a story, even if you don't have that person's post notifications on.
It is really crazy, but I've seen it happen because I have my notifications off for a lot of other apps and I don't open my apps a lot, so I've seen them try and push them out, which is just insane. And we use it as a form of dopamine, but my challenge for you is to try things that will give you actual dopamine.
Trying new hobbies, trying art, getting outside, exercising, moving your body, all of those things will make you feel so much better than your phone. It can have the same chemical reaction, right? And it's so much more beneficial to you. There are ways you can get your dopamine hits and you can become addicted to something else like working on your health and wellbeing instead of your phone.
And it feels just as good, if not better, because there are actual benefits and longer lasting positive results instead of the negative results that are cultivating from your over phone usage. Use it as a tool and not as a vice. That's how everything goes in this world, anything that's addictive.
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