Are You Really 'Online'? 5 Signals That Reveal Your Digital Disconnection

I used to think my algorithm-driven feed was a ritual—a daily dance of curated validation. I’d stare at my phone at 2 a.m., scrolling through hollow victories: a like here, a comment there, another notification that never landed. My mother, a Jamaican teacher, once told me: ‘You don’t become real by chasing screens.’ My father, a German coder who built systems for silence, nodded but never replied.

We call it ‘digital loneliness syndrome’—a quiet epidemic of our age. Platforms promise connection but deliver metrics. The RNG (random number generator) ensures fairness—but not meaning. You’re not connected; you’re being monitored.

I track my own engagement cycles: three consecutive likes feel like luck until they don’t. A comment from an anonymous user on Reddit echoes longer than any DM. I once spent seven nights analyzing patterns—only to find that no one remembered my name.

The ‘Festival’ is gone. The ‘Lucky Token’ is sold as data. We trade authenticity for attention spans.

Try this: mute notifications for 48 hours. Walk away from your feed after midnight—not because you lost—but because you finally felt something real.

Last week, I posted nothing—and got three private messages from strangers who said: ‘Me too.’ That’s the only signal that matters.