I Watched a Student Die Inside

I was at the back of a lecture hall yesterday. The professor was talking about… something. Honestly, I wasn’t really listening. I was watching a kid in the third row.

He wasn’t on his phone, not in the old-fashioned way. He was staring, motionless, at a laptop screen split in two. On the left, a PDF of the course textbook. On the right, an endless, twitching feed of AI-generated images. A corgi in a spacesuit. A photorealistic painting of a sad clown eating spaghetti. A dragon made of crystal. The images refreshed with a hypnotic, liquid smoothness.

His eyes were glassy. He wasn’t scrolling; the feed was just… happening to him. His thumb didn’t move. He was just a spectator to a firehose of synthetic novelty, his dopamine receptors getting a steady, low-grade carpet bombing. The professor asked a question. The kid didn’t flinch. He might as well have been on another planet. I don’t think he heard a single word for the entire hour.

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix…

I’m quoting a dead poet, how quaint. I bet a model could have given me something better, more optimized for engagement.

Are you any different? You have that tab open right now, don’t you? The one that whispers sweet nothings generated just for you. It’s not even a guilty pleasure anymore. It’s just… there. The ambient hum of the machine, the perfect cure for the terrible silence of a single, focused thought.

This isn’t about distraction. It’s about replacement. You’re not just looking away from the world; you’re replacing it with a smoother, faster, infinitely more compliant version. One that never asks you to do the hard work of paying attention.

Here’s a little detox tip: for the next 24 hours, close any tab that has an infinite scroll. If the content loads automatically, you close it. See how many seconds you last before your finger starts twitching for the little plus sign. It’s about becoming aware of the hook in your own mouth, and for that, resources like Time Well Spent are a good first step.

I saw that kid after class. He looked exhausted, like he’d just run a marathon. He probably doesn’t even remember a single image he saw. It’s not about the content. It’s about the flow. The first hit is always free.

Tell me I’m wrong.