She clicks the notifications as they appear on Facebook, liking, commenting and sharing items that catch her interest.
But her interest is spread.
She is scrolling 9gag’s hot page in the background with half of an eye on it. SoundCloud is playing through a mix by some DJ she has seen has a lot of follows. Twitter is trending #TGIF.
On LinkedIn, an ex-colleague sent her a request. She accepts it and checks out it his profile. What was his wife’s name again? He has moved jobs. It is a downgrade from his last one, but the town he lives in on the east coast looks nice.
An email appears in her Outlook. She flicks back to this screen. She had forgotten she even had email. How antiquated!
It is a customer query. She sends the standard response and then flicks back to check what has changed on Facebook.
Her friend is pregnant. She likes it before scrolling down. Another friends mother has passed away. She writes how sorry she is.
And then scrolls further.
Pictures. Selfies. Group photos. Check-ins. Status updates. Shares. Appeals for help and random jokes based on memes that by definition are now a cliche.
Boredom gnaws at her like cancer.
Twitter notifies her on an incoming tweet. She sees that a boy she likes–or, at least, a profile picture that she thinks is hot–is now following her. The incoming tweet is another account; it is a bot spamming her with a dodgy link. She blocks it. She tweets at the boy. He retweets her but does not reply.
She sighs.
If only she had some friends and was not so lonely. If only she had somewhere to go and something to do tonight. If only that beautiful boy in the profile picture would notice her profile picture.
If only she had someone to communicate with.