*Yawn* Midnight. You’ve been lying in bed, scrolling your feed for the last half hour.
Tomorrow’s a busy day, so many things to do… Suddenly, one post grabs your attention.
“Mass reports of people not being able to go offline,” it reads. Hmm… Some sensation-hungry
tabloid making a story again, no doubt. You shrug and put down the phone. Time to go to
sleep. You wake up holding something in your hand.
Your smartphone. Weird. You clearly remember putting it on the bedstand. Still groggy,
you unlock it, and a post similar to the one yesterday pops up at once. “Thousands of
people unable to put down their devices.” What’s that, some prank gone out of control?
You press the screen lock button but nothing happens. You press it several more times,
still to no effect. And then you realize you can’t move your eyes away from the screen.
Starting to panic, you get up from the bed, phone still in hand, eyes glued to the device.
Seeing the surroundings only with your peripheral vision, you stumble and fall flat on your
face. Instinctively, you put your arms before you to soften the fall, but your right hand
doesn’t turn palm-first to the floor, and on impact, you hit yourself in the face with
your phone. You gingerly get up again and go to the bathroom.
Meanwhile, the feed gets frantic. The statuses go, “Anybody else have this strange attachment
to the screen?”“NOT FUN AT ALL, I’VE JUST SPLASHED HOT COFFEE ALL OVER MYSELF”
— and stuff like that. Experimenting, you find out that if you stretch your arm as far
in front as you can, you can see around quite fine. Good, let’s get ready for work then.
Having approached the car, you realize you can’t drive while staring into the screen.
You flinch when the picture suddenly changes — your boss is video calling. “Hey Greg,
I know the situation, so I’m not expecting you to come on time today. When everyone’s
here, though, we’ll have a little discussion of the matter, so try not to be too late.
See you in the office.” You hardly manage to say “Okay” when he’s already hung
up. Not having much choice, you go to the bus stop.
You wait for about 15 minutes when it dawns on you that public transport is probably not
going to work. You sigh and start walking. It’s gonna be a looong day…
At the office, everyone’s the same: one arm outstretched, eyes on the screen of whatever
device they’re holding. Your boss is here too. You were the last to come. You take your
seat, and your phone starts ringing, just as everyone else’s. Absurd as it is, you’re
now in a conference call because you can only look at each other this way.
After the discussion, you all go to your homes. There’s nothing you can’t do from home
in the circumstances. Still, work is work, so you do what you can, chatting with your
friends and family at the same time. Not all of them are fine this way, unfortunately.
Your parents have both essentially lost their jobs, since they can’t work remotely. You
calm them down and promise to help if it gets worse. Same goes with some of your friends:
one of them is a driver, another is a machine operator at a construction site, and yet another
is a doctor — he tells you he can’t even examine his patients.
The first day goes by, you clumsily cook dinner with one hand, and while eating, you see a
notification on your phone: low battery. Suddenly scared of what may happen, you plug in the
charger and wait until 30%. Getting ready to sleep, you plug the phone in again and
close your eyes. The morning of the second day starts with
the news all over your feed: people around the world report not being able to lay down
their phones; some become chained to their computers as soon as they turn them on. Support
groups pop up, and you join one of them, not really surprised to see many familiar faces
there. You go about your business more or less as
usual, but the overall situation grows worse. Many businesses post news of closing down
since they can’t perform their duties. Those that can still function apologize for possible
delays in service; others, like you, can still work using their devices.
Feeling you have to do something, you join several more support groups and connect with
people who need help. In your free time, you make a few calls and talk to people, calming
them down just like your parents the day before. ***
Two weeks have passed. Your support team has grown, helping those in need with money, groceries
ordered online, and simple conversations. Life around the world hasn’t returned to
normal, but you see lots of people uniting in the face of trouble. Your group is only
a tiny part of a huge community spreading kindness and support. You all try not to leave
your homes and continue working too. It takes a lot of effort, but you know there are people
in a much worse situation than you. ***
On the 27th day, you realize how much the world has changed. The streets are almost
empty save for people walking their dogs or going to work they still can do. Drones fly
around, bringing essential goods to people — they’ve been hurriedly deployed to replace
human delivery. There are not nearly enough, but it’s something.
You’ve been spending your time working remotely, helping others, and group chatting with your
friends in the spare time. You all agree it’s not half as fun as meeting in person, but
at least you still have each other. You’ve also found several awesome online
learning platforms, and you’re now becoming proficient in French and finally taking that
math course you’ve always wanted. Reading e-books has become your second nature too.
That said, you never knew there were so many great mobile games to pass the time!
The main problem is probably your neck and eyes that get too strained from looking at
your phone. You’ve solved it too, though, finding some good exercises for both. Just
turning your head left and right, then tilting it carefully to the sides removes neck stiffness;
the trick is just not to overdo it — being too vigorous once left you standing with your
ear to the shoulder when something clicked in your neck.
As for the eyes, you figured you could close them for however long you wanted, so you do
some basic gymnastics every hour or so. You close your eyes, then press the palm of your
free hand strongly but carefully to one eye, then the other. After that, you roll your
eyes left and right, then up and down,. Finally, you forcefully shut your eyes for a few seconds
and open them again, repeating it three times. Relieving stress.
*** On day 32, you wake up still glued to the
screen, phone in hand. While having breakfast you’ve just made with one hand, you notice
a post by one of your friends. It says, “Hey, have you tried looking out the window? I mean,
just do it, and give me a like if you can, lol.” Perplexed, you see the number of likes
being 24 already and rapidly growing. You gather your will and force your eyes away
from the screen. Suddenly, you’re looking at your kitchen. You unclench your fingers,
and your phone falls down on the table. You stand up, your legs feeling as if they’re
made of jelly. Looking out the window for the first time in a month, you see people
outside, laughing and hugging each other with both arms. You look at your phone again, but
then leave it on the table and rush outside to drive to your parents.