But honestly it's not THAT different from watching TV/YT all night, or scrolling reddit/lemmy.

Where credit is due, my YouTube algorithm is 90% educational, my original goal of Lemmy was to follow cybersecurity news (because for whatever reason cybersecurity experts rarely use reddit) and reddit is reddit, the reason I tell to myself "avoid TikTok, there is already too much mindless doomscrolling in your life"

I wouldn't say the same. Almost everything I listen on a documentary or any other form of divulgation of science, philosophy or any other kind of knowledge, because I select long and dense videos over short and light ones (almost everytime, but not everytime, of course, some exceptions here and there), and I also care for the emotional and ethical impact of what I'm watching, and I try to think, and theorize, and, in general, to put such knowledge to work and to consolidate itself, even when it concerns the most mundane matters.

The involvenment with the content, and its emotional and ethical impact, is what determines if you'll be able to later remember that content.

Those things are what lack the most in both pseudointellectual and brainrot content.

Imagine caring so much about what I said you gotta make entire comment about not caring