Once upon a time, “free time” meant something. It meant daydreaming on a park bench, reading books that lit fires in our minds, conversations that stretched long into the night. It meant silence, solitude, reflection—the very ingredients of what made us human.
But that time is dying. And we are letting it die.
Because now, in our hands, sits a glowing rectangle—a sleek, seductive device we once called a tool. It is no longer a tool. It is a trap.
Every spare second is claimed by the scroll. The dopamine hits are fast and relentless: a like, a ping, a reel, a buzz. It knows what we want before we know it ourselves. It feeds us just enough to keep us hungry. We wake up and reach for it before we kiss our partners good morning. We sit across from loved ones at dinner, eyes locked not on them, but on an endless stream of curated lives. We tell ourselves we’re “just checking something.” But the truth is, we’re being checked out of reality.
Smartphone use has become a full-time occupation—stealing our hours, our presence, and our potential. The more free time we have, the more we surrender it to the scroll. And in doing so, we are trading depth for distraction, connection for convenience, purpose for passivity.
We are not just losing time.
We are losing touch.
With each other.
With nature.
With ourselves.
And now, something even more powerful has entered the equation: AI.
At first, it seemed like salvation—efficiency, productivity, personalization. But with AI shaping our feeds, writing our content, selecting our music, our movies, our meals, our mates… we’re entering a new phase of surrender. AI isn’t just helping us choose—it’s choosing for us. Quietly, invisibly, and increasingly accurately.
It learns us faster than we learn ourselves. It refines the algorithm, smooths the edges of our curiosity, and gradually funnels us all toward the same set of recommendations.
The same viral video.
The same breaking news.
The same jokes, fears, ideas, emotions.
A convergence is happening. Not of technology—but of thought. Of taste. Of identity.
Our digital worlds, once infinite and chaotic, are being distilled into one stream, curated by machines designed to keep us engaged, not awakened.
And here’s the part no one wants to say out loud:
We are being rewired.
Our attention spans are shrinking. Our capacity for boredom—once the birthplace of creativity—is vanishing. Our emotions are being flattened by the constant barrage of stimuli. We are forgetting how to wonder, how to question, how to be different.
If this trend continues, what becomes of us?
A society of scattered minds.
A generation addicted to noise.
A culture that confuses personalization with truth.
A future where silence is feared, solitude feels like suffocation, and everyone thinks, feels, and consumes the same things—because that’s what the algorithm told them to do.
This is not a call to destroy our phones. It’s a plea to wake up.
Because if we don’t reclaim our time, our attention, our capacity to think freely—
the glass cage we built for ourselves will become our permanent home.
And by then, it may be too late.
Discover more from Brin Wilson...
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
