Paola

Again and again, I heard people say they were not protesters but protectors—of their communities, of their values, of the Constitution. Vice President Vance has decried the protests as “engineered chaos” produced by far-left activists working in tandem with local authorities. But the reality on the ground is both stranger and more interesting. The... See more

Most commuters work in pairs—a co-pilot listens in on a dispatcher who provides the locations of ICE encounters and can run plates through a database of cars that federal agents have used in the past. Green Bean explained what happens when they identify an ICE vehicle. (Both ICE and Border Patrol are in Minneapolis, but everyone just calls them... See more

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.