As we careen through 2026 with its deepening adaption of SLiME tools
and other varieties of Language
Model innovations, I ponder the effects of the prior seismic technological development: Social
Media. Earlier this year I posted a Preface
for my still in-development Weapons of Mass
Detraction,
a remark on the reality warping effects as perpetrated by social
media giant Meta
through its platforms Facebook and Instagram. I've struggled with summiting this piece because the
core knot to untangle is how to make the virtual real: as a Software Engineer I can
visualize and
describe how I see these technological tools change the behaviors, values, and morals of
individuals, however translating this message into a tactile narrative for the average reader has
proven difficult for me to untie. So I write as an exercise in self-discovery of my observations, in
order to more easily grasp the intangible for others.
Suffering by the Screen,
or Suffering from the Screen,
is a term
revolving around my mind from
these insights: with a Screen Sufferer
being an individual with this affliction. To
break it down
we need to meditate on the keyword: Screen carries a few interpretations beyond the
phone display or
computer monitor so I'll continue with this reflection. When I settle down for the evening to read
the latest edition of The New Yorker or a paperback book, I reflect on the literary
subject while
gazing out onto the yard to observe nature. The windows that I see through are cutouts of the
perimeter walls in the three-season porch that provides me access to the outdoors to see creatures
like squirrels, bluejays, robins, deer, sparrows, finches, coopers hawks, red tailed hawks, ground
hogs, mourning doves, and chipmunks. I see my car, the sidewalk, the trees, the grass, the trash
bin, the recycling containers, the stray bits of debris from the landlord tending the yard work, the
telephone poles, chunks of asphalt throw aside from the snow plow this past winter, my neighbors'
homes and their own worlds unfolding.
As these things pass through the window clearly and smoothly into my eyes, I tilt my head to change my gaze from the open gapping window to the two-by-two panes of warped glass that make up the window sash. Now the feathery creatures morph in shape and size, distorted by the prisms of solid crystal goo. The robin's brown and red pattern, at great distance in the grass, exchange portions with a head that feels now proportional to its bulbous body. The edges of the asphalt chunks melt into the hot slabs in the August evening. Fat, bottom-heavy blue trapezoidal prisms replace the perfectly cubic recycling bins with speckles of light suddenly emitting from the bubbles encased in the panes.
I turn my head again. Now to the open window with a thin wire sieve, a screen. Everything returns to seemingly normal and yet there is a difference. I peer through the screen at the hard bodies of objects familiar with me. The chassis of the car strikes me with its differences: the body feels smoother and sleeker than before, yet duller and absent with details in its jet black paint. The dirt in the rims fade into the grey cast, as if hiding away from my sight. When seeing the bird bath, the water is muted as well yet obviously present. The glare is turned down but still piercing. The shapes seem full yet there's missing definition, a reduction of reality.
As the evening light falls down across the ease next to the other windows I note the difference in luminosity profiles between the three sets of rays: the proud square from the open window, a square with subtle undulations of light as I (if flying) am staring down on the rolling hills of a farm plane, and then the gradient darkening of the lit screen. At the near base of the last, I can make out in the light the tight knit of the wire spindles (like little pluses) that then dissolve into a consistent tone imbued with its presence.
Screen Suffering is the inverted hierarchy of perspectives made possible by the supplanting of an individual's real perspective of reality by the virtual perspective, causing downstream effects on an individual's values, judgements, and choices. The screen, like a digital sieve, filters like a window screen, on what matters for the beholder. It is one thing to look through an intangible electronic prism, and it's another to author choices through the shifted perspective as defined by a third-party corporation.
To Suffer by the Screen is to tether one's definitions and self to this impermanent earth and abandon the shared common reality of the physical world for virtual cognitive serfdom.
When we engage with digital platforms through a screen of their definition, the proprietors author our choice of actions which define ourselves in their realm. The full spectrum of actions is pre-defined for the author's understanding, with the capture of user-generated artifacts from the user's identity and essence of being utilized as touchstones. The inherit flaw in these systems is their retrogressive profiling of matters: a comment made is an artifact from a moment in the past without a full account on authenticity, context, and severity.
There is also the consideration and consequence of actions at a distance for screen sufferers: the
set mosaic of virtualities as filtered by a screen empowers a perverted certainty
of
reality
for
their actions. An example of this is the impulsive text communicator who just assumes someone is
available which leads to frustration in their tele-interlocutor's absence.
These situations
can
also be classified as Actions at a Distance due how telecommunication systems work, which can
be
extrapolated out far enough to include Amazon package status, Uber's driver system, Drone Operators
in war zones.
The communication platforms develop emotional incentives to return to the screen. A common expression
for this family of incited emotions is FOMO.
The ambiguity of presence by the receiving
party causes an
emotional
unease
originating from both reception and results. Due to the nature of Software Bugs in programs,
operators have a
lingering delusion in certainty of the system: from the elements to the backing that they are fixed
to because the software simulation through the screen is not tactile.
Calling Screen Suffering an empathy deficit
is a disingenuous profile of Screen Sufferers. I
believe the condition is more so a malformed understanding on a set of facts, feelings, and
observations as transformed and transmitted by the screen. Like how light filter through a metal
screen onto the eye, a car's shape can be seen but not down to the infinite continuous detail that
true vision defines. Screen Sufferers jump to their conclusions by partial fact sets because the
system conforms the messy realities into neat categorizations of data sets, giving the impression of
completeness. It's a partial vision that can never fully realize what's real because, like a metal
screen in a window, there are truncations of the continuous definition of reality. No matter how
smoothly we blend the pixels there is a gap that the digital cannot capture.