Without the micro-dopamine, real-world pleasures register more.

You find out who wants to talk to you and who just wants you to entertain them. True friends text you, the others just wait.

Irritability and envy go down. The feed is a ragebait firehose and a comparison machine. You always knew this, but you forgot.

You stop thinking in posts. Thoughts return to conversation.

You realize how much of your personality is reactive to a timeline instead of rooted in your own characters and story. Past a point, posting is more identity construction than expression.

I feel simultaneously more invisible and more mysterious. Fewer people are watching. Fewer people can pin down exactly what I’m doing right now. Not posting has the air of reclaiming privacy.