The epidemic of constant communication - by Amanda Brown

I went to my first college party in September 2023–an apartment crowded with bodies and laughter, the air thick with the faint smell of sweet perfume and sweat. There was a table of Jell-O shots, vodka, and mixers. Music throbbed through the walls, bass-heavy, a blend of 2010s nostalgia and rap songs that made the floor rumble. My roommate and I sank into the couch, singing “Party in the USA” at the top of our lungs, barely audible over the roar of conversation. We played pong with strangers and flung our arms around people we’d never met before. We drank, we talked, we laughed, we sang, we danced, and crossed an invisible threshold: our first real night out. So adult. When we finally stumbled back to the dorm, I called my long-distance boyfriend, my voice thick with exhaustion and alcohol. “I missed you a lot,” I murmured, meaning it, feeling it throbbing in my heart. “I don’t think that’s true,” he said, his voice sharper than I expected. Drunkenly, I laughed at the absurdity of it a

I went to my first college party in September 2023–an apartment crowded with bodies and laughter, the air thick with the faint smell of sweet perfume and sweat. There was a table of Jell-O shots, vodka, and mixers. Music throbbed through the walls, bass-heavy, a blend of 2010s nostalgia and rap songs that made the floor rumble. My roommate and I sank into the couch, singing “Party in the USA” at the top of our lungs, barely audible over the roar of conversation. We played pong with strangers and flung our arms around people we’d never met before. We drank, we talked, we laughed, we sang, we da