What's a new skill you picked up recently to combat #brainrot ?

"brain rot
(n.) the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration."
(Oxford Dictionary).

This was word of the year in 2024.[1] Now in 2025 with more and more #GenAI assisted tasks, this becomes even worse, as a study suggests.[2]

It is not surprising; in tech we know something called #TutorialHell which discribes the state where you just follow along tutorials believing that you are learning somehting, but as soon as you need to solve a problem yourself, you realize that even after hours of tutorials you can't, because you actually never learned anything, even though you did everything by the letter.

I realized in ~2016, that I've been working in tech for over 10 years, and being so into it, that even for non-tech tasks I would think like I would when programming something and be even surprised if others did not. That was the moment, where I feared becoming what in Germany we call #Fachidiot (i.e. a one-track genious, that's an idiot in everything else).

To combat this, I picked up #日本語 (#Japanese). Just because I found it a real hard challenge. I think, doing something like this is essential: Learn something new, you've never done: a language, an instrument, a motor skill, or - if that is not your field - programming. Important is, that it get's you into doing something completely new, to animate your brain. Because, as it is well known: The brain works like a muscle: The more you use it, the better your mental and intellectual state gets - the less you use it, the more it deteriorates. And with the temptations of our modern world ( #socialmedia #GenAI #workoverload #populism #shorts #doomscrolling etc.) this has become more important than ever.

[1] https://boingboing.net/2024/12/02/brain-rot-is-oxfords-word-of-the-year.html
[2] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.08872v1

#learning

„Weniger ist mehr – auch in der Schule“: Sind die Lehrpläne so überfrachtet, dass Schüler (und Lehrkräfte!) überfordert sind? - News4teachers https://share.google/ooB8eSFPt1E2IqhgD

„Weniger ist mehr – auch in der Schule“ -> sag ich schon seit Jahren. Lieber ein fundiertes Fundament und wirklich verstanden was da gelehrt wird, als sehr viel auswendig gelernt und gar nichts verstanden 🤔 Jeder kann sich nach Bedarf spezialisieren und lernen was er dazu benötigt 🤔 #bildungspolitik #politikversagen #Fachidiot

#ElonMusk, 10/18:

"I think teaching kids critical thinking is very important. It's a mental firewall. Teach them the types of fallacies and forms of trickery they're likely to encounter. Immunize kids against propaganda. Basically, teach kids to be skeptical about what they're told."

Elon Musk, 10/23:

#fachidiot #propaganda #fascism

One of these German words that every language should have:

#Fachidiot.

Someone who is amazingly proficient at whatever their exact specialization is, while being totally dumb about everything else.