Everywhere I look
formulaic blocks of text
separated into
bite-sized

chunks

and “it’s not x, it’s y”

or “and honestly, it was always z”.

Everywhere I look
simplification
streamlined—
ease, ease, ease.

We are setting a generation up for failure
when they don’t have the skills required
to navigate a world
that is complex
and difficult.
Attention spans shrunk
to thirty-second TikToks
most can’t read with comprehension
struggling to write two pages of original thought
because they’ve never sat—
under-stimulated and bored.
With all we have gained
the breadth and depth of knowledge
at the tattoo of fingers on a screen
did we stop to ask
what humanity
we sacrificed along the way?