The Joy of Being Online All the F*cking Time

From the author of The Joy of Leaving Your Sh*t All Over the Place, comes a defense of screen time. We’re inundated with advice on how to cut back on our screen time, and urged instead to embrace nature, human relationships, and being present in the moment. But has anyone actually considered those realities? They sound like a lot of work. In her new book, Jennifer McCartney gives thanks for phones, iPads, laptops, the menu tablets at Chili’s, and all screens everywhere. We can now follow a baby alpaca on a webcam, watch a viral video on TikTok, find an ex on Facebook, measure our pupillary distances, answer any question without engaging our brains—there’s so much to learn, with little to no effort. The Internet practically runs itself! We use it for work, for family, for research. We’re really, really good at being online! And that’s something to celebrate. With her usual balance of pithy wisdom, aptitude tests, and hilarious commentary, McCartney embraces our new reality. After all, as Descartes might have said, “I scroll, therefore I am.”