You Have a Brain

My roommate then looked at me like I'd just told her I don't believe in oxygen.

"Wait, you think movies are a waste of time? Like, all movies?"

"Most movies," I corrected, because I'm trying not to be an absolutist even though internally, yes, I mean all of them. "I just don't see the point of sitting for two hours watching other people's fictional problems when I could be reading something that actually teaches me something or working on something that matters."

The silence that followed was the kind where you can actually see someone recalibrating their entire opinion of you. And then she said it, laughing but not really joking: "You're literally a grandma in a teenager's body."

I've heard this before. So many times it's become a running joke. Grandma. Old soul. Too serious. Ancestor. "You need to loosen up." "You need to have fun." "You need to live a little." As if living means mindlessly consuming content that vanishes from your memory the moment the credits roll. As if having fun can only happen when your brain is switched off.

But here's what I want to know: when did thinking long-term become something to apologize for? When did being intentional about how you spend your time make you weird? When did having a brain and actually using it become a personality flaw?

Another time, someone was in my room and decided to browse my books. Something I dread, especially with shallow minded individuals,I watched their face change as they scanned the titles. Medical textbooks, yes, those are expected. But also books on philosophy,on finance, on economics, on history, on personal development. Biographies of people who actually did something with their lives. Books about ideas that have inspired civilizations.

"Where are the novels?" they asked, genuinely confused. "Don't you read for fun?"

And I wanted to say, "I do read for fun. This is fun for me. Learning is fun. Understanding how the world works is fun. Growing is fun." But I knew how that would sound. I knew I'd get that look again. That "you're so weird" look that I've become intimately familiar with.

So I just shrugged and said, "Not really into fiction."

"Not even romance?" As if that was the most shocking part. As if every young woman is supposed to be consuming romance novels like it's a required course.

No. Not even romance. Because I have a brain, and I'd rather fill it with things that will matter in fifteen years than with stories that won't. Mind you,the subtle,yet modest romance in Afghani,syrian and most middle Eastern books are to die for. Especially when they don't erect castles of delusions in an already deluded mind of a gen-z.

I know how this sounds. I know I sound insufferable, pretentious, like I think I'm better than everyone else. But I'm not saying I'm better. I'm saying I'm terrified. Terrified of waking up at thirty-five and realizing I wasted my twenties, the years when my brain is most plastic, most capable of forming new neural pathways, most primed for learning, on entertainment that served no purpose beyond temporary distraction.

There's this concept in neuroscience about myelination and neural pathway establishment. Every time you do something, think something, practice something, your brain physically changes. The neurons that fire together wire together. The pathways you use most frequently become stronger, faster, more automatic. Your brain is literally being shaped, every single day, by what you feed it.

So when I see my age mates, my classmates, even older colleagues at the hospital, spending hours on TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, I don't see harmless fun. I see brains being rewired for short attention spans. For superficial thinking. For constant stimulation. For the inability to sit with a difficult thought long enough to actually understand it.

I've watched it happen in real life. Smart people, people who got into medical school which means they're not stupid, who can barely read a two-page article without getting distracted. Who can't watch an educational video if it's longer than five minutes. Who can't engage with complex ideas because they've trained their brains to need constant novelty, constant entertainment, constant easy dopamine hits.

We're at the hospital doing ward rounds, and during the brief moments of downtime, what do they do? Scroll. Always scrolling. Through what? TikTok dances. Celebrity gossip. Drama. Outrage. Memes that will be irrelevant tomorrow. Content that evaporates from memory the moment they scroll past it.

And I want to grab them and ask: Don't you see what's happening? Don't you see that you're voluntarily giving away the most precious resource you have, which is your attention, your mental capacity, your cognitive potential, to algorithms designed specifically to keep you distracted and unthinking? And dumb?

My consultant mentioned toxic epidermal necrolysis today, this condition where the skin literally dies and peels off due to severe reaction. And its off radar but I said to myself , "Social media is doing the same thing to my generation's brains. Epidermolysis necrosis of the mind. The death and peeling away of your capacity for deep thought."

I've met too many people my age whose entire personality revolves around whatever is trending on social media. Who have no original thoughts because they've outsourced their thinking to influencers. Who can't reason through a problem because they're so out of sync with reality, living in these digital echo chambers where everything is performance and nothing is real.

Their attention spans are whack. And I mean clinically, measurably impaired. They can't focus on anything that isn't immediately gratifying. Can't delay gratification. Can't work toward long-term goals because they've trained their brains to need constant, immediate rewards.

And the sad part? They don't even see it. They think this is normal. They think I'm the weird one for reading books instead of watching reels. For choosing documentaries over Netflix series. For spending my free time learning new skills or rather observing instead of keeping up with celebrity drama I won't remember or care about next week.

But here's what I know that they don't seem to: the brain you're building now is the brain you'll have at thirty, at forty, at fifty. The neural pathways you're strengthening now will determine what kind of thinker you become. The habits you're forming now will shape what your life looks like years from now.

If you're spending these crucial years training your brain to be distracted, to think superficially, to consume passively without creating or analyzing or understanding, that's what you'll be good at for the rest of your life. That's what your brain will be optimized for.

And then what? How is this generation going to raise the next one when all that's in their heads are TikTok dances and influencer beef? How are they going to solve real problems when they can't focus on anything complex for longer than sixty seconds? How are they going to build careers, relationships, lives that matter when they've spent their formative years perfecting the art of doom scrolling?

I think about this constantly,at the most random moments. Maybe too much, according to everyone who calls me a grandma. But I can't stop thinking about it because I see the trajectory. I see where this leads.

We're creating a generation of people who know everything about celebrity gossip and nothing about history. Who can recite TikTok trends but can't explain basic economics. Who have strong opinions about everything but haven't read deeply about anything. Who are perpetually online but completely disconnected from reality.

And the saddest part is they're choosing this. It's not being forced on them. They're voluntarily trading their cognitive potential for entertainment that doesn't even make them happy. Have you noticed that? The people who consume the most social media are often the most anxious, most depressed, most dissatisfied. Because their brains know, even if they don't consciously recognize it, that they're wasting their lives.

I don't want that. I refuse to accept that. I have a brain, one brain, and it's the only one I'll ever have. And I'm going to use it. I'm going to feed it things that make it stronger, sharper, more capable. I'm going to build neural pathways for critical thinking, for deep focus, for complex problem-solving. I'm going to read books that challenge me, learn skills that take years to master, engage with ideas that don't have easy answers.

Yes, that makes me a grandma. Yes, that makes me weird. Yes, that means I don't fit in with most people my age who think life is about having fun and going viral and collecting experiences for Instagram.

But in fifteen years, when the neural pathways are set, when the personality is formed, when the trajectory is clear, we'll see who was actually living and who was just scrolling through life.

Because you have a brain. We all do. The question is: what are you doing with it?

Are you building it or are you letting it atrophy? Are you feeding it or are you starving it? Are you training it for the future you want or for the algorithm's version of what your future should be?

I know my answer. I've known it for a while now. And if that makes me a grandma, if that makes me too serious, if that makes me the weird one who doesn't watch movies or read romance or spend hours on social media, then fine.

I'd rather be a weird grandma with a functioning brain than a cool kid with neuroplasticity optimized for scrolling.

At least the grandma version of me will still be able to think when I'm thirty.