#LogOffAndLive

[tmarshconnors]

Losing My Mind in Cyberspace

There’s a strange, creeping madness that comes from living half your life online.

You don’t notice it at first no, it’s subtle, like a hairline crack in a windowpane. One day you’re just logging in to check a few things, and before you know it, you’re tangled in a web of noise, opinion, conflict, trends, and false intimacy.

I’ve been spending more and more time in cyberspace lately. It's become a second home, a warped mirror of the real world, only louder, faster, and crueler. Everything demands my attention. 

Notifications bark like feral dogs. Messages pile up like junk mail. Endless headlines scream urgency, but deliver emptiness.

You’re supposed to feel connected but often, all I feel is erased.

The deeper I sink into these digital oceans, the more unrecognizable the landscape becomes. The algorithms aren’t made for truth or beauty or sanity; they’re made for rage, envy, desire. They know how to set you alight with outrage or make you weep in frustration. It’s engineered. It's deliberate. 

And to be honest with you, it’s sick.

I’ve found myself asking, Who am I when I’m logged in?

Am I really me? Or am I a carefully tailored, bite-sized, palatable version a commodity, a product, a line item in a marketing report?

Cyberspace sells you the illusion that you’re everywhere at once but the truth is, you're nowhere at all. You’re floating in a pixelated void, flickering between dopamine hits. You're not living life; you’re consuming it, one cheap, empty byte at a time.

God knows, we weren't made for this.

We were made for earth for walking through forests, breathing real air, hearing real voices. Not for endless scrolling, not for virtual shouting matches with strangers we’ll never meet.

There’s a real loneliness hidden behind the blue glow of the screen. A kind of modern madness. And the worst part? Society claps for it. It rewards the shallowest, loudest, most reckless voices. It buries nuance under slogans. It trades wisdom for virality.

I don’t have some perfect, sugary resolution to tie this up neatly. I’m not going to pretend it’s all fine if you just “take a break” for a day or “delete a few apps.” It's bigger than that. The truth is, we’re all standing on shifting sands here. And some days, I feel like I’m losing my mind a little more.

But maybe the first step back is admitting it admitting that cyberspace is a drug, and it’s messing with our souls. Maybe healing starts when you look away from the chaos and remember that you were made for something richer, deeper, truer.

Maybe the best rebellion now... is logging off and choosing to be human again.

By Thomas Marsh-Connors

(Angry British Conservative)