The twenty minutes after you put it down

You did not feel bad while you were scrolling. That is the part most writing on this gets wrong.

While you were in it, it was fine. Mildly interesting, a bit numbing, forty minutes gone. The feeling arrives afterwards, in the minute you put the phone face down and look at the room you are actually sitting in.

It is not quite sadness and it is not quite envy. It is flatter than either of those. It is closer to the feeling of having been measured, and having come up short, without anybody saying a word to you.