We Are So Connected, Yet We Can’t See Each Other Anymore

We sit inches apart, glowing screens between us, a thousand miles wide. We speak in echoes, algorithm-fed replies, pre-packaged thoughts we never owned. I send you a message. You send back a reaction. A digital thumb, a cartoon heart, a flicker of presence— then gone. We gather in crowded rooms, silent, heads bowed in reverence to the gospel of notifications. A congregation of ghosts, all here, all absent. Your voice is there, but flattened. Your eyes are there, but dimmed. I reach for you— but you are buffering. And yet, we post proof of life, a curated display of curated selves, hoping someone, somewhere, will see beyond the pixels, will touch something real. But no one does. Because we are so connected, yet we can’t see each other anymore.