In the admonition to “touch grass,” Internet slang has clarified an otherwise vague impression that lurks and lingers over all digital interactions and transactions: That online experience is not only a meager simulation of “IRL,” but one that warps and corrupts our capacity to sense reality at all.
As Screen Time voraciously and exponentially colonizes all time, it will be our shared capacity to articulate and situate new moods, emotions, and reactions to clarify any chance of inoculation or resistance to digital dependency, screen addiction, and AI psychosis.