Digital loneliness

The past few days I've been doomscrolling on my phone for hours on end. I'm an addict, at this point, but so are nearly all my friends. It's become so normalised to sit on your phone and watch 5 second reels all day instead of doing actual stuff, and it's made me realise how fucking lonely it all is.

Smartphones and social media gave us the ability to contact our friends anywhere and anytime, and I feel like it's made us drift apart more than ever. We've taken it all so for granted, and with how easy it is to 'fill' our social needs by shooting someone a message online, we forget that we're still sitting at home. Alone. While without it all, we probably would've been hanging out with those same friends in real life. Talking to each other, making actual memories.

On public transport, in the supermarket, at a park, nobody's making conversation with the real people next to them, because we're all being 'social' on our phones. And I know this makes me sound like a boomer, but I just wish we never got this far. I feel so pathetic all the time when I realise I get so much of my entertainment every day from staring at a dumb fucking glowing rectangle when I could've done so much more. I don't even know how to get out of it at this point. 

I wanted to downgrade to a flip phone, but none of my friends text anymore, some I can only contact through whatsapp or instagram and I'm so sick of it. I'm sick of social media websites doing everything in their power to get my attention and get us to spend more on their brainrotting, polarising content as if we're not already throwing our lives away like this.

I feel powerless against technology, as stupid as it may sound