Experimental Film May Counteract Social Media Brain Drain

UCSB study finds just 7 minutes of challenging animated shorts can boost creativity and open-mindedness.

Apr. 15, 2026 at 12:35pm

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A bold, abstract painting in soft blues, greens, and grays, featuring sweeping geometric arcs, intersecting waveforms, and precise botanical spirals, conceptually representing the complex cognitive forces at play between passive social media consumption and active engagement with challenging creative works.An experimental film intervention may help counteract the cognitive dulling effects of endless social media scrolling.Santa Barbara Today

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara have discovered that watching a few minutes of experimental, festival-style animated films can immediately increase creativity and openness to new ideas, in contrast to the passive consumption of viral social media videos. The study split nearly 500 random participants into two groups - one watching challenging animated shorts, the other watching typical viral home videos - and found significant boosts in story-writing skills and conceptual flexibility among the film viewers.

Why it matters

The findings suggest that the constant diet of algorithmically-driven social media content many people consume daily may be detrimental to cognitive abilities, while even brief exposure to more demanding, ambiguous media can counteract this 'brain rot' effect. As concerns grow over the impact of social media and AI-generated content, this study provides scientific evidence that intentionally incorporating more challenging creative works into one's media diet can have tangible benefits.

The details

The UCSB researchers, Jonathan Schooler and Madeleine Gross, designed an experiment to contrast the effects of 'low-nutrition' viral videos against more complex, ambiguous animated shorts. Participants were split into two groups - one watching the challenging films from the Short of the Week platform, the other watching 'home-video-style domestic antics' typical of social media. After the viewings, subjects were asked to write short stories and complete tests measuring 'openness' and 'conceptual expansion.' The film viewers scored significantly higher on both metrics, despite reporting enjoying the viral videos more. The researchers believe the ambiguity of the experimental films forces the brain to consider alternate possibilities, avoiding the mental ruts of familiar social media content.

  • The study was conducted in 2026 at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The players

Jonathan Schooler

A distinguished professor at UCSB and well-known researcher who co-authored the study.

Madeleine Gross

A UCSB researcher who co-authored the study with Schooler.

Short of the Week

A platform that provided the challenging animated short films used in the experiment.

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What they’re saying

“What we found is that even small doses of it can have real value.”

— Jonathan Schooler, Professor, UCSB

“What it said to us is that we enjoy these kinds of [social-media] videos but they aren't doing much for our brains. And the challenging shorts were having an immediate positive impact.”

— Madeleine Gross, Researcher, UCSB

What’s next

The study's findings will be published in the academic journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.

The takeaway

This study provides scientific evidence that intentionally incorporating more challenging, ambiguous creative works into one's media diet can have immediate benefits for cognitive abilities like creativity and open-mindedness, potentially counteracting the negative effects of passive social media consumption.