Once Upon a Page
There was a time when she devoured books in one sitting—no interruptions, no notifications, no mental tug-of-war. A single novel could swallow her whole, and she wouldn’t resurface until the final page reluctantly released her back into reality. Reading wasn’t just an activity; it was a portal. The world outside faded, and the world within expanded.
The Illusion of More
When social media arrived, she thought: Now we write more than ever. We read more than ever. Posts, captions, messages, threads—it felt like a renaissance of text. But something was off. The words were there, yes, but they were scattered. Fragmented. Reduced to bite-sized blurbs and dopamine hits. The depth was gone. And with it, her ability to truly sink into a story.
Attention, Divided
She noticed it in herself: the flickering focus, the itch to check, scroll, swipe. Even when she opened a book, her mind wandered. The immersive spell of fiction had been broken by the constant hum of digital noise. Reading became effortful. Concentration, a scarce resource.
A Shift in the Wind
But lately, something’s changing. She sees people spending more time offline—walking, talking, touching grass. The pendulum is swinging back. And with it, her hope returns: that she, too, might reclaim the richest virtual reality of all—not the metaverse, not the feed, but the boundless terrain of her own imagination.