TINA KENDALLAnglia Ruskin University, UK Abstract Drawing on the work of Susan Buck-Morss (1992) and Cressida Heyes (2020), this article develops the concept of “anaesthetic media”: media forms and practices that highlight social media’s role in numbing cognitive and sensory experience. While terms like ‘brain rot’, ‘zombie scrolling’ and ‘TikTok brain’ pathologise social media engagement,…