glossary
Definitions for the vocabulary of the attention economy. Use it to win arguments with your group chat.
Capitalized when invoked as a god, lowercased when described as a system. Refers vaguely to any recommendation engine the speaker dislikes. Technically accurate for TikTok's For You, Instagram's Reels ranker, and YouTube's home page. Technically wrong for chronological feeds, but no one will correct you.
see also: FYP
The cognitive drag left over after switching tasks, particularly after a hit of short-form content. Coined by Sophie Leroy in 2009. The original research was about office multitasking; the term aged into a Reels diagnosis. Five minutes on TikTok leaves about twenty minutes of residue, on average.
see also: brain rot
The colloquial name for the cognitive effect of high-volume, low-quality short-form content. Not a medical term. Whether it's a real condition or moral panic depends on the year, the study, and who funded it. Reported symptoms: inability to read more than a paragraph, references to memes no one outside your group chat understands, and the urge to refresh your phone within 30 seconds of putting it down.
see also: hyperstimulation
The well-documented effect where regular social media use makes you measurably less satisfied with your own life. Most acute in feeds dominated by curated content (Instagram). Less acute in feeds dominated by chaos (X). The cure isn't leaving. It's seeing less of strangers.
The moment when you've scrolled long enough that the next clip doesn't register. You watched it. You don't know what it was. You scroll again. This is the algorithm's problem too. When engagement collapses they retrain. Yours doesn't.
The act of consuming bad news in a feed for an extended period, despite the absence of new information. Coined around 2018, popularized in 2020 for obvious reasons. The original meaning required bad news; Reels of dancing girls is technically just scrolling. The lines have blurred.
see also: ragebait
Tech-bro coinage for "not using the phone for a day." Scientifically nonsense (dopamine doesn't work that way) but useful as a frame. The actual mechanism is closer to "letting your reward baseline stabilize" but that doesn't fit on a Twitter bio.
The default landing tab of TikTok and the conceptual ancestor of every algorithmic short-form feed that followed. Notable for: no chronology, no source filtering, no user control beyond "not interested."
Dull's stance: Not applicable. TikTok is entirely short-form, and Dull doesn't filter TikTok. The honest move is deleting it.
Oxford's 2022 word of the year. Means lying in bed for sixteen hours consuming media without showering. Originally a Twitter joke, now a lifestyle. Loosely related to brain rot. Goblin mode is the behavior, brain rot is the residue.
The state of being overstimulated past the point where ordinary stimuli register. Six hours of Reels and a real conversation feels boring. This isn't a metaphor; it's a real neurological setpoint shift. Recovers in days, not weeks, if you stop.
see also: attention residue
A UI pattern where new content loads as you reach the bottom of the page. Invented by Aza Raskin in 2006, who has since called it "the slot machine of the web" and has been apologizing for inventing it for the better part of a decade.
see also: hyperstimulation
The joy of missing out. The supposed antidote to FOMO. Mostly a wellness-industry coinage that sounds good on a podcast and means very little. The actual experience (not checking your phone for a weekend and feeling fine) exists, but it's usually just called "Friday."
Fear of missing out. The 2010s anxiety that became the 2020s baseline. Originally a frat-house word, now a marketing tactic. FOMO is the engine of every feed. If you weren't worried about what you might miss, you wouldn't open the app.
A self-imposed period of no phone, no social media, no distractions. Usually a week or month, usually after a breakup or a deadline. Functionally similar to dopamine fasting but with more discipline-aesthetic. Works for the duration; rarely sticks past it.
A TikTok-native subgenre where livestreamers act like video game NPCs, repeating canned phrases for tips. The format is now a meme even outside the original context. If you understand the reference, your brain has been routed through TikTok at least twice this week.
The one-sided relationship between a viewer and a creator who has no idea the viewer exists. Coined by sociologists Horton and Wohl in 1956 for TV stars. Aged perfectly into the streamer era. Reels are the densest possible delivery vehicle. You consume hours of someone's face; they consume nothing of yours.
The feeling that your phone is vibrating in your pocket when it isn't. Documented since 2007, more common in heavy users, no known long-term effects. Mostly resolves within weeks of reducing usage.
Content engineered to make you angry enough to engage. Distinct from clickbait, which aims at curiosity. Ragebait aims at the part of you that needs to leave a comment. Highly successful on X and YouTube; less so on Instagram, where outrage looks visually wrong.
The shallow-breath, breath-holding pattern many people fall into while concentrating on a phone screen. Coined by Linda Stone around 2008. Affects most knowledge workers, also most teenagers, also you while reading this entry.
Catch-all term for low-quality, mass-produced, often AI-generated content. Originally a programmer term for bad code; expanded to describe Reels content that exists only to fill the scroll.
Dull's stance: This is most of what Dull removes.
Using social media without the algorithmic feed. Your subscriptions, your friends, your DMs, no recommendations. The word "sober" is generous. The practice is what Dull is built around.
see also: see the Dull approach
The TikTok genre where a person reads a Reddit AITA story over Subway Surfers gameplay while a Family Guy clip plays in the corner. Three streams of stimulus, one viewer, zero retained information. Peaked in 2023; never fully went away.
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