Watching a Kid Dissolve Into The Abyss

Proudly written by Callan Hansen

03/07/2025

The other day I watched in horror as a kid faded in front of me. Eyes locked to a screen, scrolling like a machine, bouncing like something possessed. He wasn't playing. He wasn't talking. He wasn't even here. Just gone. Lost in the algorithm. Fully absorbed in some synthetic dopamine loop that replaced actual presence.

This is what we've done to children. We've numbed them before they ever had a chance to feel. And the worst part is, no one gives a shit because it's easier this way. It's easier to hand them a device than to raise them with awareness. Easier to give them comfort than to guide them through discomfort. Easier to suppress emotion than to sit with it. Easier to silence the child than to face yourself.

You don't want to deal with tantrums. You don't want to deal with boredom. You'd rather avoid it all. And then it gets brushed off with lines like "this is just how kids are now." No, it's not. This is how disconnection looks when it becomes normal. This is what happens when convenience takes the wheel.

I'm not saying this to shame parents. I get how hard it is. Raising a kid while exhausted and just trying to get through the day is a real thing, and I don't have kids of my own, so I won't pretend I fully understand that weight. I just wish we weren't sleepwalking into this kind of disconnection, one screen at a time.

Avoidance is the real pattern underneath it. You can't sit still. You can't look at your own reflection. You can't handle silence. So the same distraction that numbs us gets handed to our kids too, generation to generation, without anyone really choosing it.

Most people would rather live in a comfortable lie than to face the uncomfortable reality. That's the real sickness. Not the phone itself, but what it represents. A world so disconnected from its own spirit that even children are being conditioned to escape themselves.

It's a devastating realization. But there's something we can do besides just watch it happen. It starts with noticing. Noticing when you're the one reaching for a device to avoid a hard moment. Noticing what "this is just the way the world works" is actually excusing. I don't know if I'll get it right when it's my turn, but I hope I at least try to stay present, instead of handing that job to a screen.