Audrey Cedor / The Cougar
Quick question, can you think of a specific TikTok video you saw yesterday? What about an Instagram Reel? Maybe you can name one out of a hundred. As for me, I spent all night scrolling TikTok yesterday and couldn’t tell you a single thing I watched.
Doomscrolling has become a familiar tradition online. Before TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, we scrolled through Tumblr posts, Pinterest feeds and bottomless wells of Facebook memes.
As one Reddit user wrote, “15 years ago we used to doomscroll text…10 years ago we doomscrolled images…five years ago we started doomscrolling videos.”
However, the short-form video style of content is uniquely dangerous. A study published in the American Psychological Association found that “repeated exposure to highly stimulating, fast-paced content may contribute to habituation, in which users become desensitized to slower, more effortful cognitive tasks.”
In short, TikTok and Instagram videos act as addictive stimuli; their nature leads users to binge content and overwhelm their brains with information. While doomscrolling may feel relaxing, it quietly destroys your ability to concentrate.
So, how do you protect your brain in a world full of endless video content? The answer: chess.
Why chess beats scrolling
I know, board games in the big 2026, but chess isn’t a regular game. It is often said that there are more possible variations of a chess game than there are atoms in the observable universe.
Which means chess has the same infinite possibilities as a bottomless TikTok feed, without all the looksmaxxers, people filming themselves crying and copy-paste iterations of the same trends.
Playing chess is a healthy alternative that lets you stimulate your brain in a slow, more deliberate way. It puts you into a “flow state” and produces many mental benefits over time, like improving memory and creativity, enhancing critical thinking and boosting self-confidence. Chess helps prevent dementia and can even be used to manage symptoms of ADHD.
It also gives people a chance to connect with each other in a competitive way that’s cheaper and more accessible than sports, thanks to online platforms like Chess.com. Sustainable stimulation without the brain rot.
Well, you might say, chess is boring. It’s a pastime for lonely grandfathers sitting in public parks, not young people and especially not young women. It’s never been used in ancient Indian battle strategy, or routinely taught to knights and royalty as a status symbol and educational tool.
It wasn’t banned by the Taliban last year due to concerns of gambling, and it certainly didn’t cause the U.S. and Soviet Union to butt heads after a surprising American victory in 1972. It’s a perfectly irrelevant game without almost 1,500 years of history.
The gender divide is trickier. Chess is definitely male-dominated, the top champions being Garry’s, Bobby’s and Magnuses. It can feel intimidating, lonely or plain uninteresting for women to enter what seems like a stuffy “male” activity.
However, this participation gap is all the more reason to bring more women in. After all, the game of chess we know today wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for a woman.
A game shaped by women
The queen is now the most powerful chess piece, but it used to be one of the weakest; it could only move one square diagonally, like a pawn. In fact, queens weren’t in the original game at all; a piece called a “vizier” was used instead.
Things changed in 1475 when Queen Isabella of Spain began expanding her influence, uniting two fractured kingdoms into a strong Spanish state and funding expeditions that led Europeans to discover the Americas.
This powerful female monarch inspired an upgrade to the chess piece, and the rules changed so that the queen could move in any direction and in long strides. The whole game became faster, more exciting and more decisive. “Mad Queen’s Chess” became the pioneer of the contemporary game.
At the end of the day, your brain is the most powerful piece on the board that is your body. Like the queen, it needs to operate, not in short, limited bursts, but in sustained, sweeping movements.
You don’t have to give up the Internet forever or never go on TikTok again. Just occasionally exercising your cognitive abilities with chess would be a good investment in your mind.
And while you may not remember any specific games, you will be better able to remember your own life. In a world full of pawns, be the mad queen.
opinion@thedailycougar.com
