On Good, Evil, and Intentions 

In the early morning – the quietest hours of the night – the moon just waning from its zenith, I sat. I sat, right inside my cozy home with a family quilt covering my body sipping a hot ginger tea lazily reading through the pages of a book, The Pince, by Niccolo Machiavelli. 

In the excerpt I read, Machiavelli carefully laid out how princes must conduct themselves to be successful. He argued that the prince should never become despised and hated so they must actively take steps away from these outcomes. He describes how the prince must act as if they are merciful, kind, and understanding when in reality they should be anything but. The author establishes that all humans are always trying to subvert each other for their own personal interests so therefore a good prince would recognize this and trick their citizens before he gets used by them. Something here felt wrong. Are humans really that evil? Is Machiavelli right to claim that humans are bad? Somewhere deep inside of me I feel that the average human is good. 

Disgruntled, the next morning I thought about this idea as I watched my instant coffee swirl into my water. I realized that I could not argue that humans were good if I don’t define what it means to be good. From there we can assess to see how many people are good and how many people aren’t, then we can see if the good outweighs the bad. So what does it mean to be good? To be good one must be helpful to others and do well.

Later on that day in math class, I look over at my partner, “Hey, do you think humans are good?” I ask him. After a second of contemplation, he responds, 

“No, I don't think so. Everyone acts for themselves. We never do anything for anyone else.” Surprised by the clarity of his answer I think for a second, 

“Well some people do acts of good, and if you do more good and than bad, if you help others more than you hurt others doesn’t that make you good? Mother Teresa for example, hasn’t she caused more good than harm? Was she not a good person?”

“Well yeah right we can say she was relatively good but is she really good? Did she help others for their benefit or for hers? She may have said that she was helping others but really she was really just doing it to feel good. Think about it, when’s the last time you helped someone? Were you really doing it for them or were you doing it for another reason? I think if there is an ulterior motive then can we really can’t really count it as a good deed because you’re intentions were not good.” This raised another question for me. Talking about this to him made it clear that my definition of being good is too unclear. Does intention matter in relation to being a good person?

“Well we are coded to help each other right, we are herd animals, it is only natural to want to help the tribe. So our acts of good will always make us feel good but is that the reason why we do good?”

“Is it?” He responds. As the bell rings signaling the start of lunch I think about it more. Yes, I do good because I feel that it is the right thing to do but also the feeling and comfort surrounding doing good is a huge motive in my life. I sit next to my friends near the basketball courts. As some of them play a pick-up game I bring my dilemma to my friend next to me. Explaining my conversation he gains a contemplative expression. 

“Well, I see what that other guy was saying but does intention really matter? Like isn’t it just the result?” Defending my math partner I respond,
“Well intention matters, why would it not? To be a good person you must want to do it, what if I had evil thoughts and intentions but I accidentally do good? Do your thoughts not matter when judging if someone is good?” 

“I mean yeah, I think that what you say matters because that's an action but like you can’t really control what you think. The only way to control your thoughts and make them pure is to do well and say well, if I am always doing good and saying good then I will think well too.”

“But it's not just your thoughts, it's your intention of each action that guides your thoughts right? Like if I attend a bunch of Climate reform protests with the intention to look good on Instagram and not spread awareness then my action will still be impure because my intentions were impure.”
​
“Alright well think about it like this, if I go into a test trying to fail it for whatever reason but I ace it do I get an A or an F? In the same way, if I really want to pass my exams and study all day for a test but fail it, what can I do? I can’t go up to my teacher and tell them ‘Well I really wanted to pass this test so can I pass it?’ No, in your climate change example if you are making meaningful change and really spreading awareness to others it doesn’t matter what you're doing it for. You objectively helped others which is objectively good making you objectively a good person.” This seemed fair enough, but in the same way, if you found out your best friend's mother was sick so you cooked her a nourishing chicken soup and gave it to her. But she does not know it is chicken soup and being a vegetarian, when she finds out she feels hurt. Objectively you have hurt her, while your intentions were pure – just trying to be helpful – your actions were bad. I would still count this as a good deed though because your intentions were pure. 

 

We have all fallen into the addictive loop that is going on a lunch break, opening a TikTok your friend sent us, beginning to scroll past this one video, and then suddenly looking up and your break is over without even realizing that thirty minutes have passed.

 

Binge-watching short videos, hours at a time directly targets our brain's dopamine receptors. Dopamine is sent directly to our Nucleus Accumbens in the Basal Ganglia, leading to a pleasurable feeling when we continue to see new content. Kids are more susceptible to binging such content, as their prefrontal cortex has yet to fully develop, meaning the fight between their rational decision-making and immediate satisfaction is more often won by the midbrain where the dopamine is released than it would when an adult is making the decision to stop and put down the phone.

 

It is not out of the ordinary for one to go to a restaurant and see parents of young children hand
them an iPad in order for them to not make a fuss in public. This trend has coined the term “iPad Kid”, which is a term that refers to young children who are seen with a tablet at all times, barely looking up to interact with others. The term insinuates that the children are being raised by the iPad rather than their parents. This leads to the addiction to screens at an early age, due to the habits built while the brain is rapidly developing.

 

A lot of people, mainly parents, will brush off these claims and think this type of content is harmless. They believe Brainrot is just a buzzword or a joke amongst those online. Haven’t we all had something similar to Brainrot in our childhood? Past generations have also had widely condemned forms of entertainment accused of harming their brains; Gen Z had Vines and early TikToks, Millennials had programs such as South Park and Family Guy, and even Gen X had Punk Rock music, so are the warnings against Brainrot just as meaningless as those before it? Some might think that since other generations turned out just fine, the concerns over Brainrot ruining our children’s minds are just as meaningless as the concerns that Punk Rock music would turn an entire generation of kids into anarchists.

 

This pushback against the harms of Brainrot would be justified if there wasn’t an exuberant amount of evidence that those who consume such content have much worse social and executive skills. DovePress has released a study in which they found that individuals aged 18 to 27 with more screen time had worse performances in planning and decision-making than those who used their phones much less often. The same study uncovered that those aged 18 and above with higher social media usage had higher levels of depression and burnout, as well as developing an addictive relationship with social media. Dr. Preetika Mukherjee, a neuropsychologist, noticed it in her own son’s behavior. During the pandemic, her son began consuming more and more content on social media, which caused him to become more moody, tired, and irritable.

 

“I teach seventh grade, and they are still performing on a fourth-grade level,” says a
middle school teacher and TikToker @QBthedon.

 

So how do we stop kids' brains from “rotting”?

 

Habits built at an early age are difficult to break once the brain fully develops, which is why it is important to create a healthy relationship between kids and their screens at an early age. It is recommended that children who are developing limit their screen time to an hour a day. A lower use of their screens creates a less reliant relationship between someone and their phone/tablet. These can also be automated through parental controls on many devices, which has the added benefit of blocking kids from seeing a ton of inappropriate content.

 

Overall, the rise of Brainrot content has made Social Media and screen usage amongst small children and teens immensely addictive, each new video bombarding our brain with a quick dopamine rush. This phenomenon serves as a reminder that while social media and technology give the access to connect in ways we have never seen, it also comes with negative risks to cognitive development and mental health. By understanding these problems, we can create and foster healthy habits and help Gen Alpha develop a much healthier relationship with their social media and screen time.