Average screen time in the US has hit 6 hours and 40 minutes a day — and it’s getting harder to look away. In 2025, screens have become both our window to the world and our most inescapable mirror. The average American now spends 6 hours and 40 minutes per day on a device. Among teens aged 13–18, 41% log more than 8 hours of screen time daily. They’re not only confined to Netflix binges and TikTok loops, its schoolwork, news, socializing, and the occasional doomscroll. But the line between function and fixation is blurring fast.
Entertainment screen time among US children jumped from 4 hours 44 minutes in 2019 to 5 hours 33 minutes in 2021, according to Common Sense Media.
Researchers warn that the more time kids and teens spend on screens, the less they sleep thus the higher their risks of future heart and metabolic problems, from high blood pressure to unhealthy cholesterol levels, according to the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Brain Rot
When Oxford Dictionaries named “brain rot” its 2024 Word of the Year, it captured more than a social media trend. The term describes “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially due to overconsumption of trivial online content.” Symptoms include anxiety when away from devices, reduced attention spans, and a dulling of curiosity. Henry David Thoreau warned against such “mental decay” back in 1854, way before the premise of the internet or “tik tok”
The Attention Economy:
Tristan Harris, a former Google design ethicist, argues that our devices are engineered to hijack our most finite resource: attention. In today’s economy, time is literally money. Global ad revenue hit $933 billion in 2024, a 10.3% jump from 2023, according to Magna. It’s projected to cross the $990 billion mark in 2025. As journalist Chris Hayes writes in The Siren’s Call, “The internet, advertisers, entertainers, and politicians demand our attention so constantly that we can’t pay attention.”
Is Anti-Brain Rot agenda the most sustainable way?
Limiting screen time in 2025 might feel impossible, but reclaiming attention may be the real goal. As the world’s most valuable commodity shifts from oil to eyeballs, it’s worth asking: how much of our day are we willing to give away for free? Ironically, a new rebellion began on TikTok against “doomscrolling”. The “anti-brain rot” trend where people curated a set of slow habits like long walks, grocery runs or reading a paperback, is gaining traction among those craving digital peace.
It’s not a detox so much as a mental palate cleanser, rather a focus on small rituals that remind us of there is life beyond the algorithm. Intentional consumption. A conscious choosing of what we feed our minds thus, may just be the antidote to an era of infinite scroll.