My thumb itched for swiping, and my brain went through withdrawals from not having the constant onslaught of information. The symptoms were akin to the physical manifestations of anxiety: nervous twitching, short temper, general discomfort. Far from being relaxed by the change, I was perturbed by the absence. Perhaps I was being dramatic, but the difference was dramatic, too. I had gone from seeing hundreds, or even thousands, of individual bits of information and multimedia a day to just a handful. By cutting out algorithmic feeds, I had stomped on the brake pedal of my digital consumption
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