Communications Major

A wave of teenagers who developed tics during the pandemic has receded, illustrating the powerful influence of stress on the body and the resilience of adolescents

"What these technologies do best is remind us of what we’re not doing: who’s hanging out without us, who’s working more than us, what news we’re not reading. They refuse to allow our consciousness off the hook, in order to do the essential, protective, regenerative work of sublimating and repressing. Instead, they provide the opposite: a nonstop barrage of notifications and reminders and interactions. They bring life to the forefront, constantly, so that we can’t ignore it. They’re not a respite from work—or, as promised, a way to optimize your work. They’re just more work. And six months into a society-throttling pandemic, they’re more inescapable than ever."

The pandemic made people appreciate the small things in life, and even that had to be shared. Now those moments live on Instagram as a new kind of slideshow.

Your phone alarm goes off at 6 in the morning. You check some news sites and Facebook. It’s bad news after bad news.

Coronavirus cases keep climbing, and so do deaths. Children can’t go back to school. Your favorite restaurant and barbershop are still closed. People are losing their jobs.

Everything is awful. The world as we remember it has ended. Next thing you know, it’s 9 a.m. You haven’t climbed out of your pit of despair yet to even shower. You repeat this masochistic exercise during your lunch break — and again while getting ready for bed.

This experience of sinking into emotional quicksand while bingeing on doom-and-gloom news is so common that there’s now internet lingo for it: “doomscrolling.”