Popcorn brain and the lost art of boredom

Quick question before you scroll on - when was the last time your child was properly bored?Not “there’s nothing good on Netflix” bored. I mean the deep, staring-out-of-the-window kind of boredom where imagination used to live.These days boredom barely has time to appear before a screen fills the gap. Short videos, fast scrolling, endless stimulation. Neuroscientists have started calling the result popcorn brain - a brain so used to constant popping input that ordinary life feels unbearably slow.School feels slow. Reading feels slow. Even conversation feels slow. And when the brain lives at that speed, something quietly shrinks - attention, memory, patience. Children even have a phrase for it now: brain rot.AI risks accelerating this further. Answers generated instantly. Essays written in seconds. Problems solved before the brain has even wrestled with them. But learning was never meant to be efficient. It happens in the struggle - the frustrating moment when something doesn’t quite make sense… and then suddenly it clicks. Take away the struggle and we cheat the brain of its work.Interestingly, the students who benefit most from AI are the ones who already have strong thinking skills. Those who struggle most often rely on it - and their results drop, because their brains didn’t get to do the thinking.So I’m not saying reject technology. But perhaps we need to protect something older: Thinking time. Bored time. Because the brain still grows the way it always has - slowly, through effort, curiosity and the occasional uncomfortable silence.Thank you for pausing with me. Take care. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimmccabe.substack.com/subscribe