My morning routine has morphed into something my younger self wouldn’t recognize. After waking, I shuffle to the bathroom, brush my teeth, and then engage in the most important decision of my day: Which parts of me will be seen by the outside world? I call it the Zoom Mullet—business on top, party (or more accurately, sad comfort) on the bottom. It’s the modern professional’s uniform, and I’ve perfected the art of looking boardroom-ready from…

I have a confession to make. Last weekend, I watched an entire season of a show about attractive people making terrible romantic decisions on a tropical island. Seventeen episodes. Back-to-back. I emerged from this viewing marathon bleary-eyed and disoriented, wondering where Saturday and Sunday had gone, and why my living room suddenly seemed so bright and loud. This wouldn’t be noteworthy except for one small detail: three days earlier, I had publicly ridiculed a colleague…

The search began with a simple dinner observation that shouldn’t have been remarkable. My wife and I were celebrating our anniversary at an overpriced restaurant where the chef considers tweezers an essential cooking tool. Across from us sat another couple approximately our age, engaged in something increasingly endangered in public spaces: an actual conversation. No phones in sight. No pauses to document the arrival of each preciously plated course. No reflexive checking of screens during…

The breaking point came during my daughter’s ballet recital. I was physically present, sitting in the third row center, but mentally I was processing work emails, scrolling through Twitter, and checking the score of a basketball game I didn’t even care about. When my daughter performed her solo – a moment she’d practiced for months – I watched it through my phone screen as I recorded it, experiencing one of life’s precious moments through a…

I made a horrifying discovery during my fourth video call of the day last Tuesday. As my colleagues droned on about quarterly projections and resource allocations, I found myself fixated not on their faces or the shared presentation, but on my own digital reflection lurking in that little rectangle at the bottom of the screen. Specifically, I was transfixed by the way my neck folds created a topographical map of middle age when I looked…

I felt it again this morning. That distinctive buzz against my thigh while standing in line for coffee. My hand moved reflexively, muscle memory taking over before conscious thought had a chance to catch up. I’d already fished my phone from my pocket and was halfway through unlocking it before I realized there was no notification waiting. No text. No email. Nothing. My phone hadn’t buzzed at all. My brain had invented the entire sensation.…

It’s 1:17 AM as I type these words. I have a 7:30 meeting tomorrow morning. My body aches with fatigue. My eyes burn from hours of screen exposure. Yet here I am, scrolling, tapping, and consuming digital content with the focused dedication of someone who doesn’t have responsibilities in approximately six hours. This isn’t insomnia. This is a choice – a terrible, self-destructive choice that I make with alarming regularity. The Chinese call it “bàofùxìng…

I realized I had a problem when my chiropractor recognized me by my X-rays alone. “Ah, Mr. Thornfield,” he said, glancing at the film displaying the unmistakable curve of my upper spine. “Still holding your phone at navel level?” He was right, of course. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade with my neck bent at what can only be described as a structurally inadvisable angle, thumbs flying across a screen positioned just…

Last Tuesday at 2:17 PM, I experienced a moment of clarity so profound it bordered on the spiritual. Sitting in my home office, twenty-seven minutes into a forty-five-minute virtual meeting about quarterly social media metrics, I realized that everything—absolutely everything—being discussed could have been communicated in a four-sentence email. The epiphany arrived as the seventh participant unmuted to “just add one quick thing” that was neither quick nor additive, and I found myself staring at…