“If I could spend all day on Tinder, I would. But swiping and typing really takes it out of you.”

It’s a Generation Z lament many of us might expect to hear shared about the dystopian lure of online dating.

But as Emily Room tell us in her one-woman play Brain Rot, the reality of looking for online love, or even just companionship, is far darker and more disturbing than anyone cares to admit.

And, as she reveals in her role as a bed-bound 20 something narrator, nothing really makes sense when you’ve spent too long in a disconnected world of careless and frequently cruel conversations.

Conversations, she points out, that come without meaning and with expiry dates.

This is, brilliantly, the point of Brain Rot. An open window on the impact that online connections, explicit content and disposable engagement are having on mental health.

A deep dive into the addictive traits of looking for a relationship you’re probably never likely to find. And why for many, the only way you can avoid being hurt, humiliated or haunted by an infinite line-up of online narcissists and nutters is to stop checking your phone.

“If we get off our phone, we might actually do something we care about,” our narrator tells us, sipping wine while glued to her lap-top and mobile amid crumpled bed sheets.

“Something more meaningful than scrolling.”

Emily’s semi-auto-biographical experience of meeting strangers online to stave off boredom and isolation is as shocking as it is sad.

“You can say whatever you like,” our narrator explains, referring to Tinder. “I swipe on men because they are easy to make fun of. It’s my favourite game.”

The screened texts on stage echo the disposability of those who try to engage her in conversation as she blocks one stranger’s suggestion after the other.

“You should come with me to a gig this weekend.”

“Show me your boobs.”

“I think I recognise you. Did we go to the same school?"

The chat website Omegle – more often than not a rabbit hole leap into random pairing with the prospect of spectator sex – is another way of connecting at your own peril.

A 16-year-old onscreen casually explains ‘It’s fun to do what people ask me to do on here.’ And even if the contributors are ‘pretty weird’, she laughs and admits it’s what she loves about the platform.

Whatever encounters Emily may have experienced in real life, or as real life as you can get online, one hopes that the graphic Omegle scene shared in the play is not the norm that hooks in contributors.

It’s a scene that leaves nothing to the imagination, even pixelated, but actually isn't that shocking when you understand how explicit content is big online bait.

Our narrator, who uses a variety of pseudonyms and never overshares, describes her online encounter with a bloke in his bedroom as a ‘horror show.'

Her sense of self-loathing about why she's engaged with him in the first place gives a real sense of how abused she feels.

“It was funny at first but then it feels like s**t,” she recalls.

Funny, frustrating, futile, Brain Rot offers its audience a complete exercising of the emotions. For the young, a reality check and reminder that you need to the funny side of hyperspace hook ups, and, for the not so young, a chilling insight into digital dating.

Brain Rot by Emily Room. Technician Sophie Keeble