In CAI Currents, The American Psychoanalyst, September 22, 2026
Do you fancy yourself impervious to the siren call of your devices? Still believing in free will? Well, maybe you shouldn’t. The power of social media feeds to control and extract attention is increasingly looking as potent as the pull of gravity.
In a recent NY Times op-ed, Maxi Heitmayer, who researches technology’s impact on attention, reported results from interviewing teens about “brain rot,” that state of mindlessness that emerges when caught in an infinite feed of relatively meaningless context. The researchers conclude we “should be worried about the infrastructure of social media that has made sustained, focused attention—the very capacity required for individual growth, deep personal connection and societal participation—feel unattainable for an entire generation.”
Once you’re on the phone, you’re at risk, and teens know it. They were explicit in their insistence that the only way out is regulation from the top down. Just as was done with cigarettes. I see this in my practice. A brilliant, talented 22-year-old patient complained to me, “I spent the whole weekend in bed on my phone, brain rotting.” They don’t like it. But they are absolutely helpless to resist. Once you’re on your smartphone there is no “Just say no.”
These days it’s pretty hard to opt out of a smartphone with a dumbphone. As “My Dumbphone Made My Life Better. It Made Everyone Else’s Worse” showed, dumbphone users become dependent on others to get the Uber, let the school know when they’re picking up their kid or that they need a ride themselves, or access AAA when the car breaks down. There’s really no escaping the “algorithm.”
The teens were clear: We need regulation. They’re begging for it. New York City took a step in that direction with a recently announced school policy that bans AI use by students through eighth grade, with exceptions, bans companion chatbots in every grade, and recommends caps on screen time. It’s a step.