I watched a video of a city flooding last night. I watched it for maybe thirty seconds and kept scrolling. I didn't stop. Right after it was someone's dog doing something funny. I watched that for longer. I'm not proud of that detail but it's true. The flooding was real. Actual people's homes. I scrolled past it like I scrolled past the dog video, like I scrolled past the sponsored post for a mattress. Everything in the feed is the same width.

I used to feel the contrast. Used to have to put the phone down after something heavy. Now I just absorb it and move on, and the movement on is what worries me more than the absorption. It's not that I don't care - it's that the caring doesn't stick. It arrives and then the next thing arrives and the caring gets bumped out by volume. I've consumed so much that the intake mechanism is just smooth and continuous now. Is your empathy getting harder to find? What was the last thing that actually made you stop scrolling?