I’m perplexed.

Somewhere in the mass of gray matter between the ears that don’t work like they once did, there’s a battle of sorts going on.

“Brain rot” or “slop?”

For those who might be unaware, the phrases were on a short list for the Oxford Dictionary’s Word of the Year honors for 2024.

Ultimately, brain rot won out, being chosen as the “it” word for the last 12 months of our lives in a survey conducted online.

The dictionary — about 140 years old now — defines the phenomenon as “the proposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”

The reference is more than a century old, its roots part of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden.” The author used the term generally criticizing society’s tendency to take the easy way out rather than dealing with its more complex issues.

These days, its meaning has morphed into the result of consuming often senseless internet content over a long period of time.

The other side of my personal mental melee — slop — is what they’re calling all that senseless stuff people are looking at.

Slop, for me, used to mean the indescribable stuff that was served in dining halls during my college days. For others, it was what pig farmers fed to their stock. Some may even recall the term from a popular lyric in a Mellencamp tune.

But recent days have changed the meaning to include all the junk, photos, videos and fake news that makes me think that sometimes, Trump may have been right.

A Washington Post columnist pointed out some examples.

There’s over-the-top content generated with artificial intelligence. Think “Shrimp Jesus.”

Then, there are viral recipes, like the Thanksgiving turkey made in a toilet bowl.

But wait, as they used to say in the infomercials. There’s more.

Tik Tok influencers often post countless things like how-to videos, or discussing sometimes questionable methods of great shopping deals. The varieties are endless and change as more and more people take a peek.

Honestly, I never really thought about all this until the survey results were announced late last month.

But hearing about it opened my eyes — and my mind — during a recent visit to a regional club-style store.

I saw children in shopping cart seats parked beneath shimmering likenesses of Santa Claus and his reindeer. Snowmen, angels and other holiday themed decorations filled the shelves nearby.

The kids were oblivious.

Instead, they sat, head lowered and staring at screens — some tablet size and others the size of mom or dad’s cellphone.

I guess I’m showing my age here, but when I was that old, my head was on a swivel at Christmastime. Lights, trees, stores filled with people … there was so much to look at.

Besides, the only screen I knew was a console model, black and white Philco that got three channels — four if the weather was right.

I wondered what kinds of Christmas memories kids of today would have years from now.

Middle aged folks, too, were glued to their screens, and I can tell you only a few were using the store’s scan-and-go app.

Watching video, video calling or whatever it was they were doing, I was surprised to see the number of adults staring into the electronic boxes that are smaller than the transistor radios from my youth.

And I wondered, too, what kind of example they were setting for their children who anxiously reached for a peek at the cellphones.

That’s how this cerebellar tug-of-war began.

Brain rot or slop?

Which came first?

Is my mind wandering too much? Are the memories that stirred when I saw those shoppers worth recalling?

Writing has always helped me focus. This column has helped that happen.

Let’s just call this battle in my somewhat scrambled wit a draw.

It’s a chicken-or-egg, one might argue. Let’s leave it there so that I can move on to other things.

I’ve already spent way too much time on the topic, slogging through pages of slop in the process.

Think it could be brain rot?

ED SOCHA | tneditor@tnonline.com

Ed Socha is a retired newspaper editor with more than 40 years’ experience in community journalism.

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.