Over the years TikTok has gained more popularity. A rising concern among educators is TikTok brain rot,a term used to describe students’ decreasing attention spans due to excessive TikTok use. Many students across schools have developed this so-called “brain rot” and bring these terms or phrases that come from TikTok to school. This case also includes some students in Animo Pat Brown (APB).
Milena Velasquez a Ninth grade English teacher and the emergent bilingual lead said “I think that over the years, since I first started teaching kids they used to be able to pay attention for a lot longer periods of times.”
Over time kids have been starting to gain a short attention span due to the amount of TikTok that is consumed which causes teachers to change the way they teach and adapt to these changes in students.
“ I really try to keep my talking down to two minutes or less” Velasquez said “I understand that kids cannot focus for that long and so I’ve had to change my teaching style so that it’s not a lecture style and interacting with each other”
TikTok has also affected students’ self-esteem because of the amount of unrealistic beauty standards that are set up online.
“I didn’t have this much pressure when I was in High School as a girl to look so pretty or hot, right?” Velasquez said “Now they’re thinking, ‘Oh, everyone is much prettier than me. How come I’m the only one who’s not pretty? How come I’m the only one who doesn’t have that outfit? How come I’m the only one who doesn’t know how to do my makeup like that?’ ”
Emma Medina, an 11th grader at APB, constantly used phrases like “Do I get to go, to Ellie and Mason’s house” or “what I do” when interviewing her which are frequently seen in videos or memes on TikTok.
Teachers however still have hope for students to follow their dreams.
“I think that students want 15 minutes of going viral,” Velasquez said. “ I don’t think that that will keep them from their ambitions. I have a lot of hope in Gen Z, and I have a lot of hope that you all are more intelligent and higher achieving than we think you are.”
