There’s a period of time when you couldn’t scroll through this app without seeing dead Palestinian/Sudanese children. Tortured Banyamulenge in Congo, and blatant political manipulations about what they are suffering through and who is to blame. The algorithm is designed to amplify negative news, particularly those that provoke anger. There is also insane cynism, people arguing against human rights in broad day(phone)light, senseless vitriol between neighborly populations and religious groups, violent misogyny and racism, celebrated illiteracy/contriarian bot floods and AI slop that fries your attention span, and the bragging of the ultra rich capitalising on the chaos and suffering; people getting exponentially richer with every tragedy while the welfare of the global middle and lower class diminishes. It’s constant on here -- the anxiety inducing, exaggerated news about an imminent, inevitable doomsday and system breakdowns across the world. Youth everywhere lamenting crumbling mental health. Among the like-minded, social media can be an echo chamber of frustration that appears to lead nowhere, and that gets heavy. I get why people take breaks. It doesn’t help that the timeline is meant to mimic the slot machine “pull down for a dopamine surprise” experience. The human brain has not evolved rapidly enough to accommodate this sudden excessive exposure to sensitive/emotionally disruptive information. The average screen time of habitual social media users is cognitively damaging. Breaks can be healthy, so can going off entirely altogether tbh. This has even been proven by research, which I urge you to check out if you are sceptical/curious. Our parents were right indeed….it IS the damn phone.

Pretty sure Iran will get its lick back tonight. Hard not to trust the pattern now. Sigh 😔. We pray, we pray.