It’s 9 PM. Your last email check is done.
Your boss won’t bother you on Slack until tomorrow.
You made sure to laugh or heart-emoji react to every unread meme in your friend group WhatsApp threads. That only took twenty-five minutes. Everything is in ship shape.
You have eleven glorious hours to rest. Now is an excellent time to turn off your phone.
There’s one problem: You have more scrolling to do.
The fate of American politics hangs in the balance. You check Twitter/X to see what’s happening. Oh no. A man named “Sesame Street Pundit,” dressed in a Grover costume, interviews protesters outside the United Sates Capitol. In the background, a guy screaming about Jewish space lasers fist fights a woman with a sign about canceling billionaires. The woman smacks him with her sign and yells, “Fascist! Nazi!” The tweet has 2 million views, and the comments go on forever. The country is being destroyed. You have to do something. By reading this thread you are doing something: keeping your finger on the pulse of a sick nation.
Grover pundit screams, “Subscribe to my podcast or CHILDREN WILL DIE!” Nothing makes sense. You close the app in disgust, ready to hurl your phone across the room.
