BRAIN ROT: OVERCONSUMPTION OF ONLINE CONTENT (AN ESSAY ON THE PUBLICNESS SOCIAL MEDIA)

The term "brain rot" first appeared in 1854. But it has evolved to define a modern concern about how it will shape our digital lives. Anxiety and despair about the expected negative effects because of overconsumption of online content are of increasing interest both in academia and among policymakers to investigate the causes and consequences of this behavior. Based on the public goods feature of information and speech, I think that social media also has a public good feature. Because the starting point of social media is talking and sharing information. Brain rot, which emerges as a negative externality because of excessive consumption of social media (which I call dirty consumption), is the tragedy of the commons. It should be the subject of public solutions on a global scale and should be seen as a global public good. Keywords: Brain Rot, Social Media, Global Public Goods, Digitalization JEL Codes: H41, H87, D83, D85