Feeling increasingly disconnected day after day

I feel like the world isn’t mine anymore, and I’m only 22. With AI-generated images and videos flooding the internet, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. But when I think about it, maybe this is just how things evolve. My 90-year-old grandmother has never used a smartphone, while her grandkids are glued to them 24/7. She spends hours doing nothing, which feels strange to me—but maybe that’s just the way life changes across generations.

My Gen Alpha sister, for example, mindlessly scrolls through reels for hours. She can’t even sit through a two-hour movie. Sadly, this is the reality for most of her friends too. I don’t blame them—it’s a result of the world created by the generations before us. A world driven purely by profit, with no thought to the societal and economic upheavals their choices would cause.

Growing up, I never imagined this is the kind of world I’d be living in. But living in an individualistic, capitalistic society forces you to either play the cutthroat game or screw yourself over.

Still, I think there’s another way: screw yourself over on purpose. Care more in a world that doesn’t care. Be selfless in the face of selfishness. I believe this cycle of loneliness, hyper-capitalism, and individualism can be broken—but it requires collective action. The more lonely and detached we feel, the less likely we are to put ourselves in vulnerable situations where we might get hurt. The less we connect, the more we focus only on ourselves, and the more others feel like they have to do the same to survive.

It’s a self-reinforcing cycle, and breaking it will take an enormous shift. Not just from the working class, who bear the brunt of this system, but also from the privileged people who currently benefit from it.

If that shift doesn’t happen, please, please don’t have children. They don’t deserve to inherit this mess.

These thoughts are tangled in my mind like a million threads. I try to make sense of them, but I usually give up, left with nothing but sadness and frustration. I deeply appreciate anyone who can help me find some clarity.