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What is real, anyway? We are, dear readers, perhaps in the age of the unreal. We date through apps. We chat mostly through text boxes. Robots write our emails. We lose sleep watching videos of nonsense that we know do us harm, yet feel no desire to switch off. A decade ago, we worried about fake news ruining our brains, but the enforced proliferation of AI slop into almost every aspect of our lives makes that era feel almost quaint.

I do not know you, but I know you need to get off your phone. I know this because I do, too. We all do. We often talk of “real life”, yet we have all willingly migrated to a digital realm full of online friends, notifications and distractions. Digital life may be the default, but it doesn’t have to be. Being in the real world now takes effort. It takes time. It can feel unnatural, like a chore. But there are few things in life that are worthwhile that don’t ask for a bit of discomfort.

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