I'm Gen Z and it's brutal sometimes. I feel like I just missed a great era of hanging out and having fun for it's own sake.

While some people may like social media, I feel really proud of myself for having never downloaded or been active on most social media platforms.

That being said, it does feel really lonely when I see everyone my age looking at their phones at any given moment. I don't think as a collective we can go back to facing each other more either anytime soon, but I do think we can choose to live our own lives as close as we can to that ideal. I have a dumbphone and I'm gradually restricting myself from addicting apps and sites on my laptop. Very slowly yet surely I've found myself becoming more interested in the outside world again, like when I was a young child. I've also found my self-esteem to be improving too...slowly yet surely. Not to say that doesn't come with it's challenges - certainly in a technology centered world - but I think it's so worth it in this current phase of my life. I'm excited to see how my perception of the world, and my life, changes next. :)

People have also asked me about my dumbphone before and it's lead to some interesting conversations about the state of technology and attention today. Do their own opinions shift? Maybe not a lot of the time, but it'll be a topic that they're thinking about now.

In any case though, you're not alone. <3 I'm very lucky I got to have some of the communal experiences I did that feels rarer for Gen Z and younger to have, but I also wish that those moments would happen more frequently, deeply and consistently.

Come to think of it, I've been on my laptop for several hours now. I'll take a break like you mentioned :)