I hate this box I carry in my pocket. 

Its bright screen that never sleeps proves a source of an incessant, angst-ridden bombardment via blue light that assaults my eyes and distorts my vision in a dark room. Its images are burned into the back of my eyelids when I’m willing quiet sleep to take me by the hand for a few hours each night. 

I hate this box I carry in my pocket. I cannot part with it. 

It’s a drug that overruns my mind and body, addicting me to its dopamine-flooding fixes. I can’t get enough – I consume and consume and consume until I’m sick.

I’ve been scrolling for 3 hours. 

Sitting without it seems an eternity – I’m itching to hold it in my hand, for it to hold me back. I crave its cold, metallic embrace and the technological high. I wage war against my desire for it as we sit separated (a foot apart). 

I put down the fork and pick up the screen. It’s taken precedence over my sustenance. 

I hate this box I carry in my pocket. I’ve come to worship it. 

In the absence of organized religion in my life, I thought I was different from those who dedicate their minds, bodies, and souls to something other. But I am indistinguishable from the pious. I am faithful to this technology and the rush it provides me, despite the unbridled hatred I feel for it. I am a devout follower of its messages, addicted to its stories and guided by its presence. I could not function without it.

Like the bread and wine of Communion, its pixels and microchips are a vehicle of my newfound religion. I consume its body and drink its blood. We are digitized.

I hate this box I carry in my pocket. It’s a part of my being. 

I push and push myself through its screen and to the other side where something awaits. My vertebrae snap and splinter from the unnatural wrenching of my neck that started as an innocent hunch. My flesh melts into the blue glow that burns my skin. My eyes crack from the arid conditions my unblinking eyes have manifested as I cannot tear my gaze – myself – away from the screen. I crawl into the box, forcing bones to snap and tissue to tear. I don’t care. 

I hit “Share” on Instagram and stare into the void of cold light, awaiting the validation and security to come from the likes that flood my notifications. A superficial reminder of my friendships – these little icons that manifest on my screen and leave traces of themselves in my comment section. 

This box is my means of vision and communication and a newfound, intrinsic piece of me. Others experience me through it – so why shouldn’t it be considered an extension of my being? 

All of my being? 

I have forced all of myself into this hateful little box, contorting my body to fit its confines. I don’t know where I stop and the technology begins – we’ve become one. I don’t know how to separate anymore.

We all hate these boxes we carry in our pockets.

I’m not alone in my addiction, faith, and loss of being. Our world is skewed and contorted as we rely on them for each part of our everyday lives. 

I emerge from the Embarcadero BART station in San Francisco. Once a place to turn my gaze up to the buildings that scratch the clouds, my eyes stay glued to the screen below as I punch my final destination into Apple Maps. 

The pieces of humanity that were once a given (and required physical proximity and human engagement) are now activities that cannot occur without the help of this little, hate-filled box. We cannot – we will not – put it down, even for a few hours, addicted to its messaging and paralyzed by the fear of missing something “important.” We’re all practicing this pseudo-religion. We no longer need to think: This box provides us all the information we could ever need (not that we access it). We have crammed ourselves into its confines, desperately attempting to express our beings through its reaches as we send parts of ourselves off into the void and, consequently, alienate ourselves. It dictates our being no matter how much we like to think that we’re in control. It’s become our existence, and we cannot seem to break out. 

A walk through campus: Our opposable thumbs have evolved to cradle this technology. Not a single soul is attentive to the present as we shove headphones into our ears, drown out the sounds of the world, and engulf our beings in the screen below. All I see are scalps as I witness my peers contort their beings into this box, skin molding and necks snapping to fit its rectangular frame. I can’t catch anyone’s eye for an awkward passing smile.