She could not see, well she could, she just chose not to. She kept her head down giving her life away to social media. Keeping up with her followers takes all her time and effort. She has to post every hour to update her fans on her glamorous life or else they will not be able to survive. Since she got her first Instagram account at the age of six, she has been working a full time job of displaying her life on every social media platform available to her. She also suffers from a rare form of technological separation anxiety. This means in order to keep her calm she must have her phone on at all times especially during school. Even spending an hour away from her phone can result in sweaty palms and shortness of breath followed by piercing headaches and a nauseous stomach.

...

After forcing herself awake from only four hours of sleep she reached for her phone and was suddenly thrown into a hyperventilating panic. Her phone had not been charging overnight. She cried and swore at the universe for taking away the only thing she loved. Being without a charged phone forced her to have to stay home from school because missing any test or quiz would be better than to go to school with a dead phone and no access to social media.

Charging her phone, she logs onto her Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter all at the same time to update her eager followers. She sends out a tweet reading, “soooo tired this morning and not going to school!” to her thousands of followers most of whom their names do not matter. While she sits on the couch with her back in the shape of a question mark and her mouth hanging open she turns on the TV to mask the silence. She turns down the television playing its daily news report to film a video of herself she hopes to add to her Snapchat story. On the TV pops up an image of a homeless child clinging to his mother begging for food while the news anchor reads an article about world poverty increasing to 80% while she digs into a new bag of organic potato chips in one hand and her $800 iPhone 8 in the other.

The next day she makes it to school with a fully charged phone and is walking through the halls with her nose buried in an overly-priced glass box. She is working hard to update her profile pictures to the newest selfies she’s taken while at the same time weaving through the crowd of students. Her mind is forced away from her phone when she hears a young boy sobbing while being pestered by his fellow classmates, however her attention is immediately drawn back to the more pressing matter. She got a new follow request! She walks by the situation without even a glance back excited about the possibility of gaining another Instagram follower.

Once she gets home she spends two hours scrolling through Instagram accounts subconsciously comparing herself to every picture presented to her. She quickly forces herself out of this state to fix her makeup and add pictures to her Snapchat to portray a picture-perfect life to her followers. She could not post anything that would make her life seem less perfect than anyone else. As she moves around to find the best lighting, her untouched backpack falls to the ground making a thump from the pounds of homework inside. The sun has set completely before she can even pull her eyes off the screen to realize.

Her eyes begin to droop with exhaustion from the endless hours spent staring into a never ending medley of photos and captions that have consumed her life. As the clock strikes 2:00 am, she continues counting how many likes her most recent picture has gotten praying that it will become a new record. She will not sleep until she knows her only goal can be accomplished. She falls asleep with her phone snuggled to her chest with dreams about their days together yet to come. Even in her sleep her eyes are glued to the screen with hopes of a morning full of likes and comments.

As she sleeps she is woken from her much needed beauty sleep by a piercing alarm followed by a burst of hot air. After hearing the words “evacuate, fire, evacuate” repeated over and over she reaches for her phone because the precious seconds she’s wasting do not matter. She sits up when she cannot find her phone, rubs her eyes and noticed a red hot flame coming from what used to be her phone and spreading to everything around it.

…

They found her. Her phone in hand, clutched to her heart, covered in soot. At the end of the day, at least her followers got a good show.

Phone overheats and catches on fire

As she sleeps she is woken from her much needed beauty sleep by a piercing alarm. After hearing the words “evacuate, fire, evacuate” repeated over and over she reaches for her phone because the precious seconds she’s wasting do not matter. She quickly logs into Instagram to livestream the smoke drifting under her bedroom door. As she presses the button she is engulfed in flames

As she sleeps she is woken from her much needed beauty sleep by a piercing alarm followed by a burst of hot air. After hearing the words “evacuate, fire, evacuate” repeated over and over she reaches for her phone because the precious seconds she’s wasting do not matter. She sits up when she cannot find her phone, rubs her eyes and noticed a red hot glow coming from what used to be her phone.