The Elegance of Digital Disappearance - by Janu

I quit social media, and immediately, I became both more powerful and less real. Like Schrödinger’s influencer as simultaneously remembered and forgotten, alive in people’s minds only as a vague, unanswered question. Where did she go? What is she doing? The absence itself became a presence, more potent than any carefully curated Instagram photo dump could ever be. At first, it was excruciating. The reflex to check, to post, to be seen was so deeply embedded that my hands kept reaching for my phone's app store like some desperate, lovesick Victorian heroine reaching for a lover who had long since stopped writing. Except my lover wasn’t a person, it was the feed. The infinite scroll, the algorithmic drip-feed of attention and distraction. My brain, so conditioned to external validation, pulsed with withdrawal symptoms. How would people know I was still interesting if I didn’t give them something to perceive? How would I even know I was interesting if I had no audience to confirm it for m

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• Anjali Mathi