The Flicker Before the Fall
We reach for the screen before we reach for ourselves. As if the glow knows something we don’t.
Somewhere along the trajectory of convenience, distraction ceased to be a side effect and became a design. Not of technology, but of us. A mind aching for quiet, yet unable to tolerate its own silence. We say we’re addicted to information—but what if we’re only addicted to absence? Not the presence of noise, but the absence of feeling. Of confrontation. Of ourselves.
Checking the phone is not about connection. It is about evasion. We cradle the device like a talisman, not because it grants us insight, but because it shields us from our own reflection. The dopamine hit is real, yes. But it is not the chemical that enslaves us—it is the comfort of not having to sit in the raw, unfiltered now.
What are we afraid we’ll see if we don’t look away?
We claim we’re too busy to be still. That we don’t have time for meditation, for journaling, for solitude. But we find time for feed scrolls and flickering reels. Not because they matter—but because they don’t. Their insignificance is precisely their utility. They cost us nothing emotionally. They never ask, “Who are you beneath all this?”
The truth is, most people are not overwhelmed by complexity. They are haunted by simplicity. By the quiet question that lingers just behind their eyes when the screen goes dark: Am I who I pretend to be? That question is unbearable without a distraction to muffle it.
What if we are not distracted by accident—but by need?
Because if we stopped long enough to feel... we might unravel. And that unraveling would demand something from us: confrontation, reconstruction, maybe even truth. But truth doesn’t trend. It doesn’t ping or vibrate or light up our retinas. It just waits, quietly, beneath the weight of our endless scrolling.
To face ourselves without filters, without notifications, without an audience—that is the final rebellion. Not against the world, but against the façade we’ve built to survive it.
And maybe that’s why it’s easier to reach for the phone. Because reaching for the self feels like touching fire.
Perhaps distraction isn’t the disease, but the sedative. And maybe what terrifies us most... is waking up.